


Sidestep

by LexImperialis



Category: Sunborn Chronicles
Genre: Character Growth, F/F, F/M, Found Family, M/M, OC, Riot Squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22005241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LexImperialis/pseuds/LexImperialis
Summary: A personal work based on Lee Hadan's fabulous Sunborn series! If you havent read it, GO DO IT. This includes my OCs from my Felterra universe, so some things probably wont make sense to people.Alek and Essylla have been chasing Infernal Lords for centuries and have finally caught up with the last one. Problem is, he's gone to ground on the Sunborn world, and Riah and her team are there to help out!
Relationships: GunSong, Knifewing, Spellblade - Relationship
Comments: 11
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

Despite being more or less ready for it, Alek landed  _ hard _ , and stumbled, catching his foot on a loose stone as he did and over balancing, landing flat on his front. Essylla landed on her rear on his back with a thump and a squeak, then yelped as he pushed himself up and she tumbled sideways. 

She popped back up, shoving her purple hair out of her eyes and chattering at him mock-angrily at him in Pixili. 

*Thanks a lot, jerk!* she said, dusting off her pale green dress, fluttering her four iridescent wings to make sure she hadn't landed on them. 

Alek chuckled as he stood up. *Shush you. You landed on me, so I don't want to hear it,* he replied to her in the same tongue, making sure he hadn't injured himself as well. "So, where did that portal dump us………"

He stopped speaking as he suddenly became aware of the knife point a hair's breadth away from his throat. The young man holding it was darkly handsome, elegantly built, had a dancer's grace, and an air of total lethality. So, assassin then. Interesting. Beside him, Essylla was holding just as still, her hands held away from her sides, unthreatening. Alek very,  _ very  _ slowly did the same, keeping his eyes locked with the other man's, telegraphing his intent clearly. 

*Alek?* Essylla whispered, and he glanced away at her, then to where she was looking, seeing there were other people in the room. One was a dark skinned, strikingly pretty woman with a fierce light in her eyes, and a pistol that crackled and shimmered to his senses pointed at his chest. The woman next to her clearly wasn't human; golden haired, fair skinned, and stunningly beautiful, she had eyes that seemed to have no iris and star shaped pupils. 

Next was a woman with dark hair and eyes, who  _ thrummed _ with magic, rich and golden, and she was holding what was quite possibly one of the biggest natural diamonds he had ever seen, which glowed so brightly with magic he almost couldn't look at it.

He could also feel the presence of a fifth person in the room, feeling the change in air pressure as they moved behind him, but he dared not try to turn and look. 

"Who are you and how did you get in here?" His eyes flicked to the gunslinger, who had spoken, then back down to the man who held him at knife point. 

"I beg your pardon," he said slowly, carefully, keeping his voice completely neutral. "We didn't mean to startle you. My name is Aleksandr Petronova, and the is Essylla Glitterchild. We're…….ah……..travellers, if you will, but we didnt mean to end up here."

"That was a portal," said the woman with the diamond. "How did you use a portal?"

"Is that what you call it?" Alek asked, genuinely curious in spite of his predicament. He looked over at her with an eyebrow raised inquisitively. 

Before she could reply, another seven people came pounding into the room, three humans, two he would bet his fangs were elves, one who smelled strongly of wind magic, and one that just  _ had _ to be some form of dragon hybrid. 

It took all of Aleks formidable self control not to sigh and roll his eyes. 

Why couldn't things have stayed simple?

Three hours and a significant amount of shouting later, everyone had finally calmed down and everything straightened out. Introductions were made, properly this time, and everyone was once again settled in the room and the pair had first landed in. 

"So, how  _ did _ you end up here?" Riah asked, once the other adults had left. She was leaning back against Zan's chest, while Melody was perched on Tracy's lap. Gren was seated cross legged nearby, slowly and methodically sharpening and oiling his plethora of blades. 

Alek shot a glance at Essylla, currently sitting on his shoulder, who nodded, almost imperceptibly. "We're………"Alek paused, searching for the right words, then grimaced and sighed. "The fact is, we're chasing an enemy, and we've followed them here to your world."

That got everyone's attention in a hurry. 

"An enemy?" Zan's focus was laser sharp. "What kind of enemy?"

"The worst," said Essylla grimly. "A demon." 

Alek was seriously impressed with the levels of creativity and vehemence in the swearing which immediately followed that statement. 

“I take it that they are not a favorite of yours then,” Alek said dryly, raising an eyebrow. 

“I hate demons,” Gren spat acidly, and the others all nodded their assent. 

Alek nodded. “Good. This particular demon is an especially nasty piece of work, too. His name is Garathis, and hes the last of the greater demons, we call them Infernal Lords, who led a failed invasion of our homeworld."

"We've spent the last 1200 years or so hunting them down," Essylla chimed in. "Mostly within our own reality, but occasionally into others. This is the farthest we've ever gone, actually." 

"So why did Garathis come here?" Riah asked, looking concerned. 

"That's the problem, and why we have pursued them for as long as we have," Alek said. "Demons look for worlds rich in magic, like this one, to corrupt, in order to create more of their own kind. They are not born like we are, but rather form from tainted magic and darkness."

"What are these demons like?" Gren asked suddenly, catching Alek by surprise. 

"What do you mean?" he said, genuinely confused by the question. 

"What are their strengths, their weaknesses?"

"Well, they are beings of fire, so only the most powerful forms of fire spells, or things like dragonfire, are effective against them. Sunlight kills them outright. Ice and water can seriously hurt them. While they are stronger and faster than a normal human, physically speaking they have the same weak points, throat, heart, lungs, and whatnot." Alek quickly rattled off the list, eyes closed in concentration. "Most dont have any kind of magic, though hellions, the demons that can, are much more powerful than the average human spellcaster."

"Can they posses people?" 

There was an edge to his voice that made Alek pause, and he opened his eyes to look at Gren. There was a tightness around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes that spoke of immense fear, tightly controlled. 

"Only a very specific and very rare type of demon, known as a homunculus, can possess a body," Alek said slowly, unsure why Gren was asking. "And it takes specialized knowledge and skill to create a homunculus, skill I know for a fact Garathis doesn't have, so unless he brought one with him in his personal retinue, I very much doubt we will encounter one. And even if we do, I know how to pull one out of someone, and anyone with a sufficiently strong will can resist them. Why?" 

The others all relaxed visibly, but Gren in particular seemed to almost wilt with relief. "Because we've had some pretty nasty experience with the demons of this world,"he said, taking a swig from a cup of wine he had next to him, his hand shaking slightly. "But from what you're telling us, these demons are completely different from the ones we've faced. A lot easier to kill, for starters."

Zan nodded. "The ones we've fought are pretty much immune to anything but sunlight and dragonfire. Cold Iron hurts them, but then it hurts everything."

Essylla made a vicious, angry hiss that Alek had never heard from her before, causing him to stare at her in surprise. When she saw him looking at her, she grimaced. 

"Sorry, but I hate Cold Iron almost as much as you hate demons," she said apologetically. "Cold Iron not only hurts us, it burns our souls. It's a cruel, vile weapon." 

Alek nodded, looking thoughtful. "Cold Iron is very rare in my world anymore, but there was a cadre of warriors who used it during the Incursion Wars, to pretty devastating effect, as I recall. It would certainly be effective against them."

"We don't really have access to them, and even if we did, I wouldn't want to use them," said Riah.

Alek nodded. "Fair enough. So, let's get started, shall we? We have demons to hunt."


	2. 2. Finding, Fighting, and Flirting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team starts to hunt Garathis, Alek is Impressed, Essylla is Essylla, Faeries are scary, and flirting dragons.

Of course, it wasn't as easy as Alek had made it sound. Several weeks of careful detective work had narrowed down three possible places where Garathis and his forces could have gone to ground. The first was an ancient fortress left over from the Great War that hardly anyone went into, as it was rumored to be haunted. Second was an abandoned silver mine that had long since petered out, but was known to be a den for all sorts of nasty beasts. Information had recently come in that some of the more dangerous monsters had vacated the area as though chased out. The last was a forest far to the north, near where Riah had dealt with the rogue node years before. There had been reports lately that some rather twisted creatures had been spotted in the area.

They decided to start with the ruin, as it was the closest to the tower, just a weeks travel. All hell broke loose almost the moment they got there. 

"Wait."

Everyone froze as Alek held up a hand, nose twitching as he sniffed the breeze. "What is it?" hissed Tracy, all of them instantly on edge, weapons drawn. 

Alek sniffed again, surveying the tumbled and weather-beaten blocks of pale white stone. "I'm not sure," he said. "It smells wrong here. Like something dead left out to rot. There's a taint here, but not one I'm famili–eeyaaii!!"

A blur of smoke, teeth, and way to many claws lunged at him from the shadows of a fallen pillar as he turned. He skipped back purely out of reflex, then stepped forwards to check its rush, bringing up his knee where he judged the things head would be. He was rewarded with a loud snap of broken bone and the monster tumbled back from him with a deafening shriek of pain. 

Alek dodged a strike from a second attacker, then decked the scuttling horror in the face so hard that its head smashed down into it's own ribcage. 

He kicked away the body with a snarl, then turned and caught another demon about to try and leap on Zan from behind with a blast of fire.

"Bright stars above, you fought an  _ entire underground city full of these monstrosities _ ?" he cried, turning and punching the first demon in the chest as it tried to rush him again, his fist wreathed in electricity. There was a tremendous CRACK and the demon actually exploded as the force of a hundred lightning bolts discharged into its body. "These things are worse than anything I ever fought back during the Incursion Wars!" 

His already high opinion of Riah and her team went up several more notches.

His tail lashed out, the wicked barbs at the top punishing three demons who thought they were out of his reach. Essylla zipped by him at head height, so bright she was hard to look at. The demons  _ screamed _ in agony as lances of achingly bright light shot from her hands, and every demon struck vaporized in a cloud of dirty smoke.

She giggled like a maniac the entire time, blasting away at any demon she saw. "Wheeeeeeeeeeee come ta momma, ya ugly whore-sons!" she cackled, now lobbing spheres of golden light which exploded like grenades when the hit something. Disintegrating demon forms were tossed high into the air as the light bombs detonated in their midst. 

"I'm really glad that little monster is on our side!" Gren said, popping up next to Alek, slicing at a demon who had been trying to get the drop on him. "Is she always that crazy?"

Alek grunted as he blocked a blow, claws leaving a wicked gouge down his forearm. "More or less," he said, grabbing the demon by the shoulder and pulling it towards him before swiftly smashing it flat with a terrific headbutt. He and Gren fell into a rhythm; Gren would vanish, and while the demons were distracted by the big half-dragon, would reappear behind them, dealing some wicked slashes. When they whirled to attack him, he would disappear again, and Alek would suddenly lash out and catch them from behind, wiping them out. 

A few more minutes of fighting, and the last few remaining demons had been killed. Aside from a few minor injuries, everyone was intact, though Zan was a little singed from a close encounter with one of Essylla's light grenades, for which she had apologized profusely. 

"Here, let me take a look at that."

Alek looked down at Gren, who was gesturing at the gash on Alek's arm. Alek hadn't even realized he'd been bleeding up until that point, and held out his arm so that Gren could clean the wound and run a charm back and forth over it slowly to seal it. 

Alek wasn't paying attention to Gren, though. All of his attention was on Tracy. She caught him looking and raised an inquisitive brow. 

"Every one of us is scratched and but up, except for you," he said slowly. "Why did none of the demons attack you?" He leveled his second best suspicious glare at Tracy. 

Riah smacked herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand. "Oh, dammit, we forgot to mention her blessing!" 

Now it was Aleks turn to raise a brow. "Her what now?"

Melody spoke up. "The last time we fought demons, I blessed her. She is utterly invisible to them. They can't see her, touch her, hear her, or perceive her in any way. As far as they're concerned, she doesn't exist."

Alek digested that for a long moment as Gren continued to work on his arm. "Huh. How did you manage to accomplish that?"

Melody looked faintly embarrassed. "I, uh, I got angry."

Alek blinked, nonplussed. "You got…….. _ angry _ ?" he said, looking from Tracy to Melody and back again. "What, do you turn into a deity when you're pissed?"

***Pot calling the kettle black there, scaleskin,*** remarked Essylla from her perch atop one of the pillars, speaking in Pixili. She grinned and winked at him when he glared at her, completely unrepentant. ***You turn into something a whole lot scarier than a god!***

***They don't need to know about that,*** Alek shot back.

***Until they do.***

*** _Don't you dare, Glitterchild_** **.***

It was more his tone than his words that brought her up short. The smile vanished and she nodded when she realized how serious he was. 

***You're right, I'm sorry.***

Alek turned back to the others, who had been watching quietly. "Don't worry about it. Essylla was being an imp."

Gren grinned. "She is good at that," he said, then chuckled as the pixie blew a raspberry at him. 

They set up camp after Essylla, drawing power from Alek, purified the area and then erected powerful wards to keep them safe for the night.

"So what's our next move?" Riah asked, leaning back against Zan's knees, who was sitting on a block of stone behind her, caring for his knives and sword. "Should we head for the mine, or the forest? Both are about the same distance from us. 

Alek hummed thoughtfully, twirling a small stick between his fingers. Suddenly, his free hand shot out, and he seemed to grab something in midair. He turned his head slightly as Gren materialized, the front if his shirt in Alek's fist. 

"How did you  _ DO _ that?" he complained, astounded. " _ NOBODY _ can sense me when I'm cloaked!" 

Alek released him and smoothed the front of Gren's shirt. "Battle Sense," he said, grinning. "Its a draconic trait. I have a perfect, instinctive grasp of my environment and how best to use it in a combat scenario." He pretended to bare his fangs at Gren. "It also means that I can sense when someone is trying to sneak up on me, even if I cant detect them in any other way."

Gren flopped down next to him with a mock pout. "Spoilsort!"

Alek chuckled. "Dont worry, I can only do it if I'm  _ really  _ focused, and specifically on  _ you _ ." 

"So what you're saying is the only way to get your attention is for me to disappear?" Gren's sky-blue eyes sparkled with mischief.

Alek winked at him, grinning wickedly. "Actually, I'd much rather you stay where I can see you so that I can continue to enjoy the view." 

Tracy spluttered and coughed as she choked on the water she had been drinking, and everyone else burst out laughing at the surprised expression on Gren's face. Up until now, Alek had seemed to be immune to Gren's flirting. 

"I'll keep that in mind," was all Gren could think to say, and busied himself with his gear. 

Essylla snickered and perched on Alek's shoulder. "I think you broke him," she said softly into his ear. 

Alek chuckled. "No, not yet I haven't," he murmured back, a wicked gleam in his eye. "But I certainly plan to."

Essylla fell backward off his shoulder, seized by a fit of giggles. 


	3. A long trip ahead, a few small detours, and a very angry lizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alek starts to learn about his new friends, Angry Birds, an uninvited dinner guest, and Flawless Victory.

They chose to go for the silver mine next, because while they would have to travel about the same distance, it would be easier to get to the forest once they were already that far north. 

That and they wouldn't have to deal with Zrissthiver again. 

From everything the others had told him about the massive dragon, Alek was secretly glad they wouldn't be going that way. Dragons were often like cats, in that you could never quite tell how they would get along with each other until they were face to face. And if at that point they decided they didnt like each other, it was WAY too late for you to do anything about it. 

It was going to be a weeks travel to reach the mountain pass they planned to use, three days to cross the mountains themselves, and then another two and a half weeks to the silver mine, so they hit the road early the next morning. As they travelled, Alek got to know them better. He told them stories of all of his adventures, and they in turn shared a lot of theirs. He knew they weren't telling him everything, but then, he wasn't telling them everything either. But he did begin to get a better feel from them, their character, their personalities. They were a tight knit group. He could tell that by how they talked, how they moved. There was a bond there, forged in battle and tested to its limits again and again, which had proven that it would never break. They were comrades or friends. 

More, they were family.

It reminded him of his time with Task Force Sigma, hunting and destroying demons during the Incursion Wars. They wouldn't just die for each other. Dying for someone else was easy. They were willing to _live_ for each other, which required a whole different and deeper level of devotion.

He missed that, sometimes. Having friends that you knew intimately by your side, ready to stand with you through anything that came your way, and willing to fight with every ounce of strength they possessed to ensure that everyone made it home at the end of the day. 

Riah was clearly the leader. They all looked to her for planning amd guidance, and she seemed to carry the burden of command easily on her shoulders. Zan was her rock, her foundation, a knife in human form. And if Zan was a knife, then Gren was a sword. Just as lethal, if used a bit differently. Tracy was bright and cheerful, but he could see beneath the surface an unflinching core, diamond hard and sharp as a razor. 

Then there was the Faerie. 

Melody mostly stayed to the center or rear of the group when they had to fight, and seemed to mainly be their healer. And yet, Alek's draconic instincts kept nagging at him. He knew that she meant him no harm, but he also knew, in that strange, inexplicable, dragon-y way that he had, that she was possibly the most dangerous one of the whole team.

Alek felt like he was standing next to a strange box. He knew there was something dangerous inside, and he knew that it probably wouldn't kill him, but he wasnt dumb enough to undo the lid.

He also felt very bad for anyone stupid enough to open that lid.

All that aside, they were good people. They were the kind of people Alek was used to dealing with. Not afraid to get their hands dirty and do what had to be done for the good of all, but morally strong enough to not fall down the dark side of that thin grey line. 

He also got a good understanding of their combat styles as they dealt with a few bandit dens, and at one point a goblin nest, as they travelled. Riah and Tracy were their long range hitters, giving Zan and Gren cover to get up close, while Melody kept everyone in fighting trim. Alek and Essylla slid easily into that pattern, Alek taking up the role of a mid range fighter, while Essylla flew top cover, blasting foes from above and providing an excellent distraction that allowed the three fighters to move in. 

"Dodge!" Alek yelled, and the three women threw themselves flat as a pair of gryphons sailed over their heads, claws out. They shot over them, shrieking in fury at having missed their quarry. Alek leapt sideways, tucking into a neat roll as another gryphon dove out of the sky and slammed down where he had been moments before, hissing in anger. He popped back to his feet and spun on his heel, catching the gryphon with a ferocious roundhouse kick to the side of the head as it lunged at him. It fell heavily, out cold. 

He didnt want to kill them if he didnt have to. Gryphons were typically scavengers, clearing away dead things, keeping the environment healthy. The problem was this particular flight had figured out that the flocks of sheep from the nearby village were very tasty, and easy to get ahold of. The team had been passing through when they attacked one of the flocks, and the village headman had begged them to drive the beasts off. 

Easier said than done. 

The gryphons ranged from juveniles about the size of a large dog to fully grown horse-sized adults. And they were  _ fast _ too. They would come plummeting out of the sky at you so fast they were just a blur of beaks, feathers, and talons. 

Alek ran forward to where Gren and Zan were fighting the smaller juveniles on the ground. The comparison to dogs was especially apt, because their wings hadn't fully grown in yet, and they were therefore flightless. They attacked like dogs, in packs, from multiple directions, while the adults harried prey from the air. 

Zan and Gren, who had been fighting back to back, parted at exactly the right moment, letting Alek pass between them to smash into the pack about to rush them from that side. Screened by their bodies, the gryphons never saw him coming. Essylla landed next to Riah and Melody, panting hard, swearing profusely in Pixili. 

"They are a  _ lot _ faster and more agile than I am!" she said, wincing as Melody ran a charm over a wicked gash down her back where one of the gryphons had nicked her. "I have an idea, though. Here,  _ cha'kiri _ , feed me some power, yeah?" The word Essylla had coined as a nickname for Melody, after hearing the full story about how she had blessed Tracy, literally meant "angry biting flower" in Pixili, but Alek was the only one who knew that, and he wasnt going to say anything. 

He'd had to bite his tongue hard the first time she'd said it to stop himself from laughing, though. 

Melody and Essylla had been practicing, and had gotten good at working together, because they were both earth fey. With Melody feeding her power, Essylla created a shimmering dome of golden light over the four of them. One of the gryphons, unable to pull up in time, impacted the shield with a dull  _ thud _ and crashed to the ground. 

"Ready up, Sharp Eyes," she said, the nickname she had given Tracy causing Melody to smile. She tied a bit of magic to the end of Tracy's rifle barrel, so that wherever the gun was pointing, a tiny hole in the shield the size of a marble appeared. Far too small for a gryphon to do anything with, but plenty large enough for a mage bolt. Tracy grinned and swiftly began blasting gryphons out of the sky with pinpoint shots. 

The other adults quickly realized the danger and tore off as fast as they could fly, trying to get out of range. Tracy let them go, and switched her aim to the remaining ones on the ground that the trio of fighters hadn't wounded or driven off, but there were only a handful left at that point, amd these ones were smart enough to realize it was time to leave. 

In the brief moment of silence that followed, Gren chuckled. 

"Well, that was fun!" he said, causing the rest of them to laugh. 

"Well, now we–oooooffff!!!" Alek went sailing sideways to crash headfirst into the ground as something very large smashed into him from behind. Zan and Gren threw themselves out of the way as the ghoul thundered out of the undergrowth, bellowing in rage, its piggish red eyes glaring around itself hatefully. Essylla opened a hole in the shield, allowing the two boys to dive in, then slammed it closed again just in time to stop the ghoul from crashing through. It recoiled from her barrier, hissing and growling in anger and pain, the light magic leaving vivid red burns on its arms. 

"Where…..the hell…..did that…..come from?" Zan gasped out, trying to catch his breath.

"It must have heard us fighting the gryphons and figured on finding an easy meal," Riah said, grimly. The ghoul smacked the barrier again, hard enough to make Essylla wobble, and hissed again in pain. 

Everyone, including the ghoul, froze as a thunderous, snarling roar tore through the air. 

Riah's mouth fell open. Tracy gasped, and Melody squeaked in surprise. Zan stared, his face unreadable, and Gren swore colorfully in three languages.

Essylla giggled. "Oh, he is  _ piiiiiissed _ ," she said in a sing song tone of voice. 

Alek strode forward, his wings mantled threateningly, fangs bared, tail lashing furiously. 

He was also a  _ lot bigger  _ than he had been moments ago, his body reverting to his normal form from the sheer force of his rage. His skin was scaled, a dark, blood red, his face having lengthened into a more muzzle-like shape. His horns were longer, and his nails had thickened into wickedly curved talons. He was over fifteen feet tall, and he rippled with muscle. 

The ghoul, recognizing the bigger threat, lunged at him the same moment Alek launched himself at it. They collided with a tremendous crash, the ground shaking with the force of the impact. The ghoul swung at him, but Alek blocked the blow with a forearm, then dealt the ghoul a titanic blow to its chest, the force of the punch actually creating a shockwave that flattened the grass around them. Seeing an opening, Zan dove through the shield again and up under the ghoul's guard , dealing a nasty cut along its ribs. When the ghoul tried to swipe at him, Alek was there, deflecting the blow with a backhand sweep of his arm.

He socked the ghoul again, and the beast staggered back, Gren materializing from the other side in a similar move to what Zan had done moments before. Tracy was pumping shot after shot into the monster through gaps between them, her timing and precision absolutely perfect. 

Every time the ghoul would try to attack either Gren or Zan, Alek would get in the way, blocking or deflecting its attacks, then delivering a massive blow of his own. When the beast was off balance, Zan and Gren would dart in, dealing cuts with their poisoned blades, and Tracy kept blasting away at it, keeping it angry and distracted. 

With a howl of rage, it suddenly tried to bull rush them, and Alek seized his chance. He leaned forward, grabbed the ghoul's ears, and yanked its head down. At the same moment, he flapped his wings and brought up his knee with all his might. 

_ CRACK _

The sound of the ghoul's nose being shattered was akin to a very large branch being broken. It staggered back from him drunkenly, thick black blood oozing from its ruined face. 

"Zan! Gren! Alek! Fastball Special!" Essylla suddenly yelled. 

All three moved simultaneously. 

Gren and Zan sprinted at Alek from either side, then leapt into the air, turning sideways as they did so. 

At the same moment, Alek swept his wings forward as hard as he could. 

The two assassins were rocketed towards the ghoul, and Riah dropped a holding spell on it, freezing the beast for that crucial fraction of a second the boys needed. They struck it at the same time, each with a sword buried up to the hilt in one of the ghoul's eyes and out through the back of its head. 

The ghoul froze for a long moment, then, very slowly, toppled backwards, hitting the ground with a crash like a massive tree being felled.

Once again, silence descended for a long moment. 

Until once again Gren spoke up. 

"I know we talked about that move, but I honestly never expected it to actually be  _ useful _ ," he said, yanking his sword out of the dead ghoul and setting about cleaning the blade on the grass. "Now, would you care to explain why you look like a wet dream of Damarinth right now?" 


	4. Travel talk and showing off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sword nerds, bonding assassin-style, wet dragons are grumpy dragons, and one of the downsides of being immortal

"It's not that I was actively trying to hide my true form," Alek explained as they sat around the campfire. He had drug the dead ghoul off into the trees and tossed it away from their camp, and Essylla had erected her wards to keep them safe again. "It's just that it never occurred to me to show you."

"So then why do you transform yourself?" Melody asked, pointedly. 

"Have you ever tried being fifteen foot tall, faerie?" Alek responded dryly, giving her a wry smile. "I got tired of smacking my head off shit hanging from the roof."

Tracy spat out her drink, coughing with laughter. "Dammit, lizard, that's twice now!"

"So do you have any other secrets you've forgotten to mention?" Riah asked when they stopped laughing. 

Alek shook his head. "No, that's all, I promise."

Essylla sighed internally, but she couldn't really blame Alek for lying.

They moved out early the next morning. Zan, Riah, and Melody were discussing the route they would take, and Essylla was teaching Tracy Pixili, so that left Gren and Alek. 

"So, I was wondering," Gren said as they walked. "How's come you only fight with your fists?"

Alek chuckled. "Well, for one thing, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed, I'm plenty dangerous even  _ without _ a weapon. The other part of the answer is that I break pretty much any normal weapon I try to use. Steel blades have to be heavily enchanted for strength and durability, which is risky because the enchantments could run out of power in the middle of a fight, or the blade has to be made from much stronger materials, like these." Without thinking, he snapped his fingers and reached into the special miniature pocket dimension he kept anchored to his ring. To Gren's eyes it appeared as though Alek's arm suddenly vanished up to his elbow, and he shouted in alarm, causing the others to turn and look. 

Alek drew his hand back out after he found what he was searching for. In his hands was a heavy greatsword, with a wide, unadorned cross guard, a simple leather wrapped hilt, and a polished piece of quartz as the pommel stone. 

But it was the blade itself that really held their attention. 

I was pure, absolute black, with a rainbow sheen like an oil slick, the edges almost translucent like obsidian glass. When he swung it, the sword  _ hssss _ 'd as it cut the air, the blade keener than a wind in midwinter. 

"This," Alek said, turning and twisting the sword in a masterful display of skill, "is a dragon claw sword. I make them myself, from the shed claws that my mother gives me. It is one of the few materials strong enough not to break when I hit things with it." He spun on his heel and sliced at a nearby tree. The blade passed through the trunk with hardly any resistance, and the tree fell sideways, neatly cut just above the roots. He turned again and struck at an outcrop of stone jutting up from the ground. 

_ SSSHHRAK _

The blade cut through it, and a hefty chunk of stone thudded to the ground. He held the blade up for Gren to see. There wasn't a single mark on it, and despite its size, he wielded it easily with one hand. 

"Dragon claws and scales are incredibly valuable in my world," Alek told him as they resumed walking. He sheathed the blade across his back, the hilt over his left shoulder. "They weigh about a third that of steel, yet dragon scale armor is more than twelve times as durable, and dragon claw weapons never need to be sharpened, never rust or corrode, and are nearly impossible to break. They're also highly resistant to magic and can cut through or deflect most low to medium power spells."

Gren was practically drooling.

Alek laughed at his expression, and reached back into the pocket dimension. After rummaging around for a moment, he withdrew a pair of matched blades, of a type known as a falchion. He handed them to Gren with a flourish. 

"These should be similar enough to what you're used to using, I think," he said, grinning at the look of delighted wonder on Gren's face. 

Gren swallowed hard, and tried to hand the swords back. "I….I cant take these! They're far too expensive!"

Alek chuckled again, but made no move to reclaim the blades. "Consider it payment for your services, then, if that makes you feel better." 

Gren wrapped his normal blades carefully and put them in his pack, then hung his new blades at his hips. He was grinning like a kid in a candy store. Then he drew them with swiftly and deftly executed a series of quick cuts and slashes, before sheathing them again. He bounced up and down on his toes, and Alek was forced to bite back a laugh. 

"Thank you, Alek," he said, giving him a deep bow. "These are a princely gift, and I will cherish them." 

"Putting them to good use is thanks enough," Alek assured him, smiling. "Weapon-smithing is a hobby of mine, and dragon claw weapons are my specialty. As a craftsman, there is no higher praise than seeing your creations put to use by someone who  _ knows _ how to use them, and use them  _ well _ ." 

He turned to Zan and raised an eyebrow, but the other man shook his head. “As lovely as those baldes are, thank you, but no,” he said, holding up the bracelet on his wrist and gesturing to his tattoo. “I’m rather attached to my weapons, and they have special tricks that I’m not sure we could replicate with your blades. Thank you for offering though.”

Alek and Gren spent the rest of the day chatting as they hiked, and he enjoyed himself immensely. Gren was good company, a quick wit, and an excellent storyteller. They swapped stories of unfortunate incidents in their work, like the time Alek fell into a lava flow and was stuck from the neck down for six hours when the mage he was fighting rapidly cooled the rock, or the time Gren got stuck in a closet with a target's mistress because the man's wife had come home early, and she had hidden in the closet, completely unaware that Gren had already been there for several hours, waiting to make his move. 

When they made camp that night, Zan and Gren decided to spar a bit so Gren could get a better feel for his new blades. The men were pretty evenly matched, to Alek's eyes; Gren was heavier and stronger, but Zan taller and  _ much _ faster. After watching them trade blows back and forth, and getting his fill of eye candy in the process, as they both had removed their shirts, Alek rose to his feet, and before either of the men could react, lunged forward and joined them, turning it into a melee. He was faster than Gren, but slower than Zan, and stronger than both of them put together. The two assassin’s immediately teamed up to take on the greater threat, and Alek started to laugh as they ranged back and forth across the clearing they had chosen for the night. He used his wings and tail as much as he did his arms and legs, keeping them off balance and preventing them from both coming at him simultaneously to overwhelm him. 

They finally wound down, all three of them out of breath, grinning at each other.

“That…..was one of the…….best sparring matches…...I’ve had in……. _ years _ ,” Alek said, trying to get his wind back. Both Gren and Zan nodded in agreement. Alek had noticed that both men had their fair share of scars, but Gren had a truly spectacular one on his chest and back, like a sunburst with a blade wound at its center.

“Gren, if you don’t mind my asking,” he said, gesturing to the injury, “but what on earth happened to you to leave a scar like that?” They had towelled off, rinsing off the sweat in a nearby stream, and Zan had gone to help Melody and Riah prepare dinner, leaving the two of them alone for the moment.

Gren hesitated for a long moment, then grimaced. “Rather not talk about it, thanks,” he said, his expression clearly saying that he hoped Alek would understand. “Not something I like remembering.”

Alek nodded, instantly grasping what Gren meant. “Say no more, my friend. I won’t ask again,” he said, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I have a few memories like that myself.”

Gren sighed in relief and nodded his thanks. “So then, tell me, where did you learn to fight like that? Taking on two skilled fighters like me and Pretty at the same time and being able to hold your own is no mean feat.”

Alek sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “On the battlefield, actually. Demons are fans of swarm tactics, because there are a lot of them and they breed fast. You either learn how to fight a bunch of them at once, or you die.” 

Gren mulled that over for a bit. “What was it like? Fighting in a war like that, I mean?”

Alek chewed his lip for a moment as he considered how to answer. “It was……….hell. Never knowing what was going to happen next, where the enemy might strike, or when the next battle would be? It was hell. And yet, at the same time, it was glorious. Knowing that I was doing the right thing, for the right reason, punishing and destroying creatures that were truly evil, in every sense of the word, and absolutely deserved the destruction I rained down on them.”

Gren was silent for a while after that, and he and Alek went about caring for their gear in companionable silence. 

“What about your magic?”

“Hm?” Alek had been lost in his own thoughts, and it took a minute for him to realize Gren had spoken. He looked over at him. “What was that?”

“You magic,” Gren repeated, one of his new blades across his lap, a polishing rag in one hand. “Where did you learn all of your magic?”

“Ah, all over the place, really,” Alek said, settling back against the fallen log he had been using as a backrest. “My mother, Fireheart, taught me how to use Fire magic, and I learned Thunder magic from a very good friend. I learned Geomancy on my own, and I wouldn’t really say I have mastery of Glass magic, since I only ever learned how to do a single shield spell, but I AM very good at it.”

Gren chuckled at that. “I know what that’s like,” he said, vanishing from sight and reappearing on Alek’s other side. “That’s the only trick I can do, but it’s my trick, and nobody is better at it than me.”

“Is that why Zan sometimes calls you ‘Silence’?” Alek asked, intrigued now. It was certainly the most impressive example of stealth magic that he had ever seen.

Gren nodded. “Sorta. Was also my assassin name.”

Alek looked thoughtful. “So then why is Zan’s ‘Wraith’? That’s his other name, right?”

Gren nodded. "It is. I gave him that name. We joke about it, but I called him that because he's very good at what he does and leaves nothing but wraiths behind when he goes to kill." Then he grinned mischievously. "That and because he was a skinny little stick of a boy with a fondness for black leather and a complete lack of common sense."

"Oh, like you're any better equipped in that department?" Alek teased with a raised eyebrow.

Across the clearing, Zan burst out laughing. 

"Damn his elvish hearing!" Gren muttered, making Alek laugh too.

The next morning was overcast, and by midday it was pouring. 

Alek was  _ miserable _ . 

Rain didn't exactly  _ hurt _ him, but it made his skin crawl with the same sort of prickling sensation one gets when one's arm falls asleep, and it filled him with a kind of aching cold that left him shivering, no matter how warm it might be around him.

He trudged along unhappily at the back of the group, keeping pace with them, but generally so caught up in his own discomfort that he didn't say much.

Eventually the others took pity on him, and they camped earlier than they would have that evening, the rain not having let up all day. Once they were in the tent, they began the arduous task of trying to dry off. Alek sat huddled into his cloak, hood up, not even the tip of his tail poking out.

"Are you–?" Gren started to ask, but Alek had anticipated the question. 

"Magic," he said shortly. "Natural magic in the rain doesn't agree with me." 

Essylla giggled. "Red dragons and water don't mix," she said cheerfully, landing on his shoulder. A golden glow of power surrounded them, and Alek sighed in relief as the warmth of her magic seeped into him, drying him out and chasing away the threads of water magic out of his body. "And Ice magic is a no-no, though that doesn't affect him as badly as pure water does."

"Plus it makes my scars ache," Alek said, stretching slowly. 

"Tell me about it," Gren muttered, rubbing his chest with one hand. 

Essylla noticed and silently expanded the bubble of power to fill the tent, ostensibly to dry them all out, but she noted the immediate easing of the tightness around Gren's mouth and eyes, and realized that he had probably been suffering almost as much as Alek had. 

Alek saw it too and resolved to keep a closer eye on Gren in the future. 

They were going to make do with dried rations, but Alek would have none of it.

"You were nice enough to stop even though we could have easily gone another two or three miles, so you're going to let me spoil the lot of you." 

He took one of their pots and set it outside to fill with rainwater. While he was waiting, he opened another of his pocket dimensions tied to a different ring he wore, and beckoned to Essylla. With a giggle, she zipped through the opening, and was back a few moments later, her arms full of fresh vegetables of truly impressive size. Carrots, celery, onions, leeks, several potatoes, two ears of corn, and a handful of bay leaves were plopped into his lap. He drew a short dagger and began cutting them up, explaining while he worked. 

"I have a bunch of pockets dimensions I use for storage, the openings anchored to the rings and bracelets I wear. One of them is specially made for Essylla so she can grow things in it. This way we always have fresh food to eat, and medicinal herbs for healing" he said, placing the diced food to one side on a clean scrap of leather. 

He retrieved the pot from outside, dropped a purification tablet into it, and then carefully raised the temperature of the water until it was gently boiling. He took all the vegetables and dumped them in, scrapped all the corn off their cobs and added that, then took a good sized handful of the jerky they had, tore that up, and tossed it in. 

He opened yet another pocket and withdrew several glass bottles of herbs and spices, adding varying amounts of each to the pot before returning them. After another twenty minutes, the stew was ready, and he shared it all out among them. 

"Holy crap, Alek, this is  _ great _ !" Riah exclaimed, and Alek grinned and bowed his head in acknowledgement. 

"Thank you," he said, digging into his own portion. "One of my partners was a chef, and he taught me how to cook. I was never as good as he was, but I'm not half bad, if I do say so myself." 

"This is a lot better than 'not half bad', Alek," Zan said, shooting him one of his rare smiles. "This is easily one of the best stews I've eaten in a while." Then others nodded their agreement, and Alek laughed somewhat self consciously. 

"Well, hard to argue with that much praise," he said, and went back to eating.

"You said 'one of your partners'," Gren observed. "You've had more than one?" 

"Mhm," Alek nodded, not trying to speak through a mouthful of food. He chewed and swallowed, then went on. "I long ago came to terms with the fact that I'm going to outlive pretty much everyone that I meet, but I refuse to let that make me lonely and forever by myself. I have been married six times over the past thousand years, and happily so each time."

"Was…...was it hard, to move on?" Melody asked quietly. Tracy put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. 

Alek took another bite of stew and chewed slowly, considering his words carefully. "Yes, it was hard," he said eventually. "One of the hardest things I've had to do. But…….they were worth it, every one of them. The time we spent, and the memories we made together made having to say goodbye worth it. I dont regret a single moment of my time with any of them."

Melody was quiet for a while, then nodded, as if to herself, and leaned over to kiss Tracy on the cheek. "That…….is reassuring."

The rain let up that night, much to Alek's relief, and they made good time the next several days. Alek very much enjoyed travelling with them, and he seemed to hit it off with Gren in particular. He spent a lot of time with him, much to Essylla’s unconcealed amusement. Six days after they had left the ruins, they reached the foothills of the mountains and the road to the pass they planned to take. 

And that was when the real trouble began.


	5. Learning can be painful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alek has a really bad day, Glitter Nuke, a touch of fluff, and introspective thinking

They made good time up into the mountains, the weather holding fair and clear, the first day passing fairly quickly. 

The second day they found that a large rockfall had blocked the path through the gorge they were following. They were initially going to try and find a way around, but Alek them not to worry about it. 

He reverted to his normal form and strode forward, getting a good grip on the boulder and lifting it above his head easily. He very well could have easily shift it with his Geomancy, but this way he could show off to Gren. 

"Alright, come on through," he said, turning to toss the boulder out of the way. 

_SSSSSSSTHUNK_

Alek snarled in pain as the arrow thudded into his left shoulder. An icy burning sensation trickled down his arm, and he went pale as the realization of what it was hit him. 

" _D-d-dragonsbane_!" he gasped, then cried out in agony as three more arrows hit him, two in his left side and one into his thigh. With a herculean effort, he threw the boulder off to one side, screaming in pain as he was struck in his shoulder another three times. "Aaaaagghhh!!!! The arrows have dragonsbane heads!"

"What?? Here??" Essylla squeaked, throwing up a barrier with Riah, interweaving their magic together like they had practiced. Just in time too, as several more of the dragonsbane arrows clattered against it. Alek staggered backward, and Gren leapt forward to catch him before he fell, gently helping to ease him down into a sitting position. "How did dragonsbane weapons get here?"

Alek's face was pale and drawn, and he was shaking slightly. "Garathis," he snarled out, his eyes blazing with rage despite the pain he was in. "How else?"

"What is dragonsbane and how does it affect you?" Melody asked, coming to crouch next to Alek. 

"Dragonsbane was created by demons during the Incursion Wars," Alek said, clenching his jaw so hard he felt his teeth creak. "It neutralizes my natural healing ability, dampens my magic power, and saps my strength."

"Its essentially the draconic equivalent of Cold Iron," Essylla said grimly, before turning her attention back to her shield. "Magic will heal the wounds, but much slower than it normally would, and it'll take several treatments."

Alek bit down on his sword hilt, then nodded to Melody. He winced and hissed in agony as she quickly withdrew the arrows and bound up the wounds. 

She had just finished and helped Alek to his feet when they heard the rumbling. 

They all looked up to see a massive wall of water thundering down the pass towards them. 

"Climb! Now!" yelled Riah, and all of them scrambled to obey. 

They almost all made it, too. 

Just as it looked like they would get clear, Gren slipped on a loose stone, and fell sideways into Zan, knocking them both backwards and into the path of the flood. 

Without a moments hesitation or thought, Alek turned, leapt back down to them, grabbed them both by the collars, and heaved with all his might, tossing them back up to where the others were. Then he vanished as the water hit him with the force of an oncoming train. 

" _ALEK_ !" Essylla screamed, struggling wildly as both Melody and Riah fought to hold her back. "Let me go! He needs my help! The amount of magic in that water will kill him! Let me go let me go let me go _let me go!_ " Tears were streaming down her face. 

"Essylla!" Riah cried out, ignoring the tears running down her own cheeks. "Essylla, stop! We cant do anything for him at the moment! We need to get out of here!" 

As if on cue, an arrow zipped by and buried itself in a nearby tree less than a foot from Melody's head. Essylla's head snapped up, her eyes locking onto the archer. 

" **_YOU!_ ** " she shrieked. Riah and Melody were both knocked aside as Essylla exploded from their grasp, rocketing across the gorge, swirls of red, orange, and black energy crackling around her. " **_I SWEAR BY IMVARRA THAT YOU WILL PAY FOR HARMING MY BROTHER! COME TO ME, COWARDS!_ **"

The far side of the gorge lit up with explosions of chaotic power as Essylla, screaming in rage, blasted every single one of the assassins that had been hiding in the rocks with bursts of chaos magic so intense that they left large craters nearly thirty feet across and twenty feet deep. The water, now that the mage who had been summoning it was dead, swiftly tapered off and then disappeared, flowing away. 

They found Alek halfway back down the pass where he had fetched up against a large tree. 

He was in bad shape. One of his wings was bent at an awkward angle, and his right arm was clearly broken. He was covered in cuts, scrapes, and bruises, and there were a number of spots where it looked as though his scales had been eaten away by acid, leaving raw, red flesh behind. 

Essylla was already there when the others caught up with her, sitting on the ground, heedless of the mud. She had Alek's head pillowed in her lap, very gently wiping the mud and grime off his face. He cracked open an eye when he heard the others approach, then closed it again, smiling weakly. 

"Next….time….swim….for….it….yourselves," he rasped haltingly. 

Despite his attempt at levity, they could all see that he was in a very bad way, and needed help. Melody and Riah knelt down next to Essylla. "What do need from us, love?" Riah asked. 

"As much power as you can give me," the pixie said with a grateful smile. "I can get him out of danger, but it'll take more power than I have access to right now."

In response they both linked with her, dumping power into her waiting hands. Riah burrowed deep into the earth and tapped into a leyline, passing that power on to Essylla. 

Golden light blazed around them, a deep hum filling the air. Tracy, Gren, and Zan stood guard while the other three worked on Alek's injuries. Essylla ignored most of the minor wounds, focusing on the serious ones. Alek bared his fangs in a silent howl of pain as his wing straightened itself out and his arm realigned and knit itself back together. The magic burns across his body rippled as skin and scales reformed, and he sighed in relief as the pounding headache he had receded, most likely due to a concussion. 

Essylla finally let the magic go, and then slumped forward over him, completely spent. He turned his head slightly and kissed her cheek.

***Deepest gratitude, little sister*** he whispered in Pixili, causing her to giggle and smile tiredly.

***Endless welcome, big brother*** she replied, completing the traditional expression of thanks. 

Alek held up his hands so that both Riah and Melody could each take one. 

"Same to you two as well," he said, looking them each in the eyes. "You saved my life, and I will repay that someday."

"Oh, please, what else are friends for?" Riah started to say, but Alek shook his head. 

"Just because you're my friends doesnt mean I owe you nothing," he said with a smile to take any sting out of the words. "I owe you a debt, and one of these days I will pay you back." 

Alek, Melody, Riah, and Essylla were too worn out to continue travelling, so they made camp there, even though it was only mid-afternoon. Tracy made food while Gren and Zan patrolled the area, alert for any more enemies, but if any had managed to escape Essylla’s wrath, they were long gone. 

“So, why exactly did you do that?” Gren asked good naturedly after he and Zan had returned to camp. “Not that I’m ungrateful, but that was really dumb, even by my standards.”

“And trust me, that isn’t setting the bar very high,” Zan said, causing the others, Gren included, to laugh. 

Alek shrugged and rubbed an old scar on his cheek self-consciously. “Honestly, I didn’t even think about it,” he said, blushing slightly and looking at everything but them. “I just….I saw you and Zan in danger, and the next thing I knew, I was grabbing you and throwing you up and out of the way.”

“Well, whatever your reason, you certainly saved my life,” Zan said with a smile. “Gren is a strong swimmer, but I am rather less a fan of water than he is.”

Alek turned to Gren in mock indignation. “You can swim??” he said, pretending to be outraged. “You sneaky cad! I bet you just didn’t feel like getting your hair wet!”

As the others laughed, Gren winked at Alek. “What can I say? It takes work to look this good. You wouldn’t want all the effort going to waste, would you?”

Before Gren could get out of the way, Alek grabbed him and pulled him into a headlock, tousling his hair relentlessly. “I’ll show you wasted effort, assassin!”

“Heeeeelllllp he’s trying to murder meeeeee!” Gren cried dramatically, trying to get free. “Let go of me, ya ass! Unhand me, I say!” 

Alek released his hold, but Gren made no move to get out from under his arm, much to Alek’s bemusement, instead settling down next to him with Alek’s arm around his shoulders.. Not that he was complaining, exactly. Essylla smirked and winked at him when she caught his eye, and he stuck his tongue out at her, causing her to giggle.

“I’m glad you’re alright, Alek,” he said quietly, leaning his head back against the bigger man’s chest. “There was a moment there I thought we lost you.” 

Alek blushed slightly, and tried to act nonchalant. “Well, y-you know it would take more than that to finish me off.”

“Actually, that raises a question for me,” Gren said. “If water hurts you, how can you take baths and showers?” 

Alek chuckled. “It’s because I use my magic to heat the water. Adding my own fire magic to it neutralizes the natural magic in the water, and I can use it to take a bath or shower.”

“That seems like a rather laborious process. How long did it take you to figure that out?” When Alek didn’t reply, he looked up. “Alek?”

Alek was leaning back against the rock he had been sitting against, sound asleep. Gren laughed softly to himself, and catching Riah’s eye, had her toss him one of the blankets, then wrapped it around the two of them, sliding around carefully into Alek’s lap and snuggling down against the half-dragon.

“You big idiot,” he muttered with a smile, then closed his eyes as well.

***************

It was another two days and three more healing sessions before Alek was well enough to begin traveling again. As Essylla had warned, while his other injuries were quickly mended, the wounds from the dragonsbane arrows resisted magic, and so took nearly four times the energy to heal as a normal wound would have.

Alek was glad to be moving again when they finally struck camp and resumed their journey. The whole time there were there, he'd felt as though there was a target painted on his back. He wasn't used to feeling so vulnerable, and it was deeply unsettling to him. He'd never been injured that severely before. Sure, he'd taken some bad hits over the years, but none had ever brought him as close to death as this had, and it had left him unnerved. 

He felt _fragile_.

He did _not like_ feeling fragile.

Twice more as they were crossing the mountains, they met ambushes of warriors armed with dragonsbane weapons and skilled in magics specifically tailored against him. 

Both times, Alek was forced to stay back with Riah, Melody, and Tracy as Gren and Zan met the fighters head on. 

It was strange, being in the second line, so to speak, while others did the close in fighting. Ranged combat was not something he was overly skilled at, either. He could lob fireballs and lightning bolts, but he wasnt especially accurate, and mostly served to just keep the archers heads down while Gren and Zan closed in for the kill. 

It was a new feeling for him, having to really rely on others in this manner. It was different than giving orders to a subordinate. He wasn't sure how he felt about it yet. 

While the others picked up on his mood, they didn't say anything about it, but they did keep a closer eye on him. Gren would chat with him about anything and everything, witty and charming. keeping his gloomy thoughts from overtaking him. Zan would often draw Alek into long discussions about weapons and smithing. Riah and Melody talked to him about magic. Tracy gave him some shooting lessons to help improve his aim. He knew they were trying to keep his spirits up, and he was very glad for it. 

Then of course there were his burgeoning feelings for Gren. 

Alek was far too old to be unaware of how he felt, even if he hadn't fallen in love and been married six other times already. 

That didn't make it any less complicated. 

For one thing, he had no idea if Gren even swung that way, despite all his flirtiness. And it he did, Gren might not be looking for anything more involved than a friends with benefits situation, which meant Alek would have to deal with unreciprocated emotions, which he was _not_ prepared for…..

He was starting to give himself a headache. 

Why could his life never be simple? 


	6. Happiness and Horses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alek does some growing, Knifewing, a big problem, and Four Horses

They made it through the mountains without any further incidents and out onto the open ground beyond. This area was swampland, according to Zan and Gren, who were well familiar with the terrain this close to Darkhame.

Alek was still having trouble coming to terms with his near death experience, but he refused to let it show since the others were trying so hard to make sure that he was okay and in good spirits. And if he was really honest with himself, he was glad for the lengths they were going to, because it  _ did _ help him.

He and Gren spent a lot of time together, which Alek enjoyed. Gren seemed to really understand what he was going through, when Alek was able to articulate it, and that helped him a lot. He was witty, clever, much more intelligent than he led people to believe, and a gifted assassin. They talked a lot about their pasts, and the things that they had experienced. It had been a long time since he had last had someone other than Essylla to talk to about these kinds of things. 

As they continued to travel ever northward, the weather slowly began to change, becoming colder, the temperature plunging to well below freezing at night, and not getting much above that during the day. That did a lot to help improve Alek’s mood, as both the weather and terrain reminded him of where he had grown up in the Russik Empire, and he said as much to the others one day.

“So this is the kind of land where you come from?” Zan asked with interest, and Alek nodded. 

“Indeed,” he said smiling as he was taken with a wave of nostalgia. “Russika is a harsh land, but beautiful, like this place. Winter in particular could be brutal.” He held his hand level across his chest. “Snow up to here,  _ in my full dragon form _ , was a pretty common occurrence.”

Gren shuddered and swore with feeling. “Nope, nope, nope. Sorry, lizard, but even as cute as you are, I will  _ never  _ visit your home country.”

Alek laughed. “Not a fan of snow,  _ ashke _ ?”

Gren shot him a sardonic look. “I’m a  _ southern _ boy. What do you think?”

That made them all laugh.

Essylla flew up and landed on Alek’s shoulder.

***** **_Ashke_ ** **, huh?*** she said quietly, with a wicked grin. 

***Shush, you,*** he growled at her.  ***It just slipped out.***

***I bet that’s not the only thing you’d like to slip out.***

***** **_Pixie, I swear by all the stars above I will_ ** **_EAT_ ** **_you!_ ** *****

Essylla zoomed off, consumed with a fit of giggles. 

He actually hadn’t meant to say that. “ _ Ashke _ ” meant “beloved” in Russiki, and he wasn’t kidding, the endearment really had slipped out without his meaning to say it. 

He thought hard and long as they walked, thinking about things in every way that he could possibly come up with. His conclusion was the same each time. 

He had everything to gain and nothing at all to lose.

He sighed, and gave in to the inevitable.    
That night when they made camp, Alek drew Gren off to one side to speak with him out of earshot from the others. Everyone was startled by Gren suddenly bursting out into helpless laughter, to the point that he actually had to sit down because his knees gave out. Meanwhile, Alek stood next to him, looking bewildered.

When Gren finally managed to stop laughing, he turned to everyone else.

“He asked me if I liked men.”

There was absolute silence in the camp for a very long moment. 

Then Tracy gave a very loud snort, and that did it for the rest of them. 

Riah and Zan were holding each other up, Melody was laying on her back, and Tracy was sitting on a fallen log, repeatedly having to stop herself from falling off backwards. 

Essylla laughed so hard that the little ball of light she had been toying with lost containment and blew up in her face, launching her sideways off the rock she had been perched on with a yelp, much to the further hilarity of everyone else.

"Alek, trust me," Zan managed to choke out between gales of laughter. "Believe me when I tell you, Gren likes men!"

Gren turned to Alek, struggling with all his might not to laugh. “Lizard, I’ve been trying to get into your pants almost since you got here.”

Alek was very still for a moment, very much torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to kill Gren.

Then he started laughing as hard as the rest of them.

Despite his desire to get to rather more…..physical pursuits, Alek and Gren went for a walk around the camp.

“I wanted to talk to you about a few things before we got any more…...ahem, involved,” Alek said, causing Gren to snicker again. Alek grinned, but continued. “I…...I may have not been entirely truthful when I told Riah I had no more secrets a while back.” Gren gave him a sideways look, but didn’t say anything. “I have……another form that I haven’t shown to you, and if I have any say in the matter, I never will.”

Quietly, Alek explained to Gren about the Gravedragon, how it had come to be, and what it was.

“I hate it,” he said, bitterly. “I hate that I have this….this…. _ beast _ inside of me, that can break free if I don’t keep it tightly controlled, and harm those that I care about most.” 

Gren took his hand. “Hey, it’s not like we’re exactly defenseless little waifs, you know,” he said, smiling. “But I do appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me this.” He grimaced. “Well, turnabout is fair play, I suppose.”

He was very quiet for a long while. Alek didn’t rush him, content to wait and let Gren speak in his own time. 

“There’s a reason I was so uneasy about dealing with demons when we started out on this damned mission.”

*************

Alek traced a slow finger along Gren’s back, following the lines of the huge scar he bore as a memento of the last time the team clashed with demons. 

“What’re you thinking about?” Gren asked him sleepily, nuzzling his cheek affectionately. 

Alek smiled. “Scars tell stories, some silly, like the one on my hip from when I fell down a flight of stairs. Some, like the one on my right calf simply tell of a bad injury, and of learning the lesson to watch my foe more closely. Then there are ones like these. They tell a story of great love, depthless friendship, and a willingness to sacrifice everything for the sakes of those closest to you.” He kissed Gren gently, then held him close. “You like to act like you haven’t a care in the world, but deep down, you’re just a big softie.” 

Gren muttered something that sounded an awful lot ‘shut up, idiot’ into his chest, and was fast asleep a few moments later. Alek simply chuckled quietly, and cuddled Gren close before falling asleep himself.

They moved out early the next morning, and had only been traveling for about three hours when they ran into the demon scouting party. 

Almost literally.

They rounded a large outcrop of grey stone at the exact moment a group of demons did the same from the opposite direction. 

Both sides froze in surprise for a fraction of a second, then Alek reacted first, by letting loose a technique he referred to as his "Shotgun Punch", striking with a flame-wreathed fist to create a powerful blast of hot air that pushed the demons back away from them, giving the rest of the team breathing room and keeping the demons off balance. 

He felt his confidence returning as he got a good look at their assailants. These were the kinds of demons he was used to. 

These were the ones he knew how to fight. 

The group was made up of about twenty imps, the lowest form of demon, three of the heavier warrior types known as  _ thrakka _ , and a pair of hellion spellcasters. 

Gren vanished, and Zan lept forwards, cutting down several imps that were too slow to get out of the way. Tracy drew her pistol with a fluid speed and grace that would've made the best cowboy green with envy, and dropped a half dozen imps with a tight cluster of shots. 

At this point, Gren reappeared behind the demons, and in an eye blink cut down three more imps and one of the  _ thrakka _ , then vanished again before any of the rest even had a chance to register his presence. 

The pair of hellions didn't even get a chance to react. The first was felled by a blast of black lightning from Essylla that caught it right between the eyes, and the second went down a second later, frozen solid by Riah's ice. 

The two remaining  _ thrakka _ converged on Alek, and he met them head on, laughing. The first one threw a heavy left hook, and he ducked, sidestepping and coming up under its guard. He grabbed its arm, twisted it around, then turned the big demon just in time to collide with the other  _ thrakka _ as it tried to rush him. He dodged nimbly aside as they went down in a head, then drew his blade and ran them both through with a single thrust. 

All this happened in less than a minute. 

The remaining imps, having lost over half their number and all their heavy hitters, tried to flee. 

"Oh no you dont!" hissed Essylla, and with a piercing whistle, tore after them, Melody's hummingbirds close behind her. There was lots of demonic voices screaming and shouting obscenities, and the peculiar  _ whoof-thump _ of Essylla's light grenades going off. 

They returned a few moments later, the hummingbirds zipping back into their nest in Melody's hair, chittering animatedly at her.

"Why did they go with you?" she asked, and Essylla giggled and grinned wickedly.

"I gave them charms that allow them to fire a handful of light grenades," she said, giggling again. "They're a bunch of menaces after my own heart, and they have wickedly good aim." That caused everyone else to laugh. 

"We must be getting close to something important if there are patrols of that strength in the area," Gren said, using a handful of grass to clean the blood off his sword. He grinned over at Alek. "I keep telling people, imported stuff isn't as good as homemade. That fight was easy."

Alek smiled and nodded. "It was good to fight something I'm familiar with and know how to kill. Just don't get cocky. These demons are a lot smarter than they appear. We'll have to be careful and quiet from here on in, because it won't be too much longer before someone notices a patrol of that size has gone missing. Let's move."

They settled into what Alek called a skirmisher formation, Gren about four yards to his left, Zan four yards to his right, Melody, Riah, and Essylla right behind him, and Tracy about three yards further back. They encountered another three patrols of similar size to the first, but they were about to avoid detection, and continued on until the reached the lip of a large crater, the first of a series of deep pits where the silver mine had been. 

Alek was dismayed by what they saw. 

There were demons  _ everywhere _ . Literally thousands of them swarming wherever he looked. They carefully backtracked until they were well out of range and safe again before Alek said anything. 

"It doesn't make any sense," he said, shaking his head in confusion. "We were  _ right _ behind him when he portaled here."

Essylla nodded grimly. "He shouldn't have had time to grow that big an army."

Alek almost dropped the canteen he'd been about to take a drink from as comprehension hit him like a thunderbolt.

"Star above, I'm an idiot!" he said, hitting a nearby tree hard enough to splinter the bark. "Essylla, time! We were in such a hurry to catch him that I forgot to account for the time dilation!"

Essylla looked mortified, and Riah nodded in understanding. "How long could he have been here before you showed up, then?" 

"Judging by the numbers we saw back there? Easily eight or nine months. We'll never be able to fight that many on our own. We'd need an army."

Essylla suddenly started giggling, and she had an evil glint in her eye when Alek turned and looked at her.

"We don't need an army," she said, all deceptive sweetness and innocence. "Just some very lethal backup." 

Alek stared at her for a long moment, then a slow grin crept across his face and he began to chuckle, which quickly turned into a full throated laugh.

"You are a core of pure wickedness wrapped in sugar amd glitter, you know that, pixie?" Alek said, wiping tears of mirth away. 

Essylla giggled again and winked at him. "Its one of the many reasons you love me."

"Care to let us in one the joke?" Gren asked, looking seriously confused. The others looked just as perplexed. 

Alek chuckled again, darkly. "Better I just show you." He stood with his arms spread wide, palms upward. " _ Dra'ha luckensa vite, paritos kolack vo'yeir. Ma'tresa gora, yut quir pablin exsarros vetchka! Sarbes enocht, tirsem lahoola Nephalim! _ "

There was a long silence, as though the world itself had stopped, then a shudder in the air, and four people were standing before them. One was a giant of a man, bigger than Alek, with flaming red hair and thick beard braided into intricate patterns. the next two were also men, one older, dressed in jeans and a plain t-shirt with a broad cowboy hat, a pair of pistols on his hips and a rifle at his back, the other dark haired, dark eyed, and dressed in an immaculate lab coat and scrubs. The last was an extraordinarily pretty woman, petite, curvy, who seemed to vibrate with vitality. It was she who spoke, a wide grin on her face.

"Alek!" she said, darting forward to hug him, a gesture he returned fondly. "It's been ages since you called! Oh? Who are these lovely people! Introduce your friends, you doof!" 

Alek laughed in spite of himself and turned to the others. "Team, allow me to introduce some old friends of mine; Darrius Cross, Joseph Ironroad, Allister Bellephonte, and Errisa Blackwell," he said, then grinned in a very predatory manner. "They're also known as the Nephalim War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."


	7. Panic, Rage, and Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erissa goes too far, and Alek gets angry

While the title was meaningless to Zan, Gren, and Melody, both Riah amd Tracy turned very pale when Alek introduce them, which at least gave the other three some idea as to who they were dealing with. Gren vanished, telling Alek he would try to find them a good campsite. Alek kissed his cheek before he did, then felt him leave. Ever since they had slept together that first night, Alek's Dragon Sense had tuned itself to Gren, so now he always knew where his lover was, much to Gren's amused annoyance.

"A pleasure to meet you," Zan said, all courtly manners and politeness, yet subtly stepping in front of Riah as he bowed. Erissa giggled and gave a pretty curtsey in response.

"A pleasure as well," she said, winking at him. She held his eyes for a long moment, and he heard her voice whisper softly in his mind.  **_::Well met, Dark Son who walks the paths I lay down. Well met indeed. And you have found the light that counters your shadows. Good. Very well met, Wraith._ ** :: She winked at him again, and Zan smiled in spite of himself, taking one of Riah's hands and giving it a soft squeeze. She turned back to Alek. "So! You wouldn't have called us unless it was serious."

As quickly as he could, Alek explained the situation, including everything that had happened to them up to that point. When he finished, Darrius laughed and cracked his knuckles.

"I've been hopin' ta' knock some heads, lately," he said, grinning like a wolf. 

"I could do with a bit of target practice, myself," agreed Joseph, drawing one of his pistols amd twirling it expertly before bolstering it again in the same movement. 

"Indeed," said Allister quietly. "I have some new diseases I've been wanting to try out." 

Errisa laughed and shook her head. "Bloodthirsty, the three of you," she said, smiling fondly. "So, do you have a plan, Alek?"

He nodded, pulling out a blank piece if parchment and a stick of charcoal from his pack, drawing quickly.

"While we were making our way to the mine, I got a pretty good handle on the area with my earth sense," he said, holding out the rough sketch of the mine he had just made for them to see. He circled a particular spot on a line that burrowed deep into the hill that made up the northern wall of the mine pit. this abandoned gallery comes within fifty feet of the surface at this spot. I can easily make us an entrance to sneak into."

"So what do ye need us for?" asked Darrius.

Alek gave him a smile that was all teeth. "Live bait."

Darrius threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Well said, mah friend!" he said, slapping Alek on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble slightly. "Ye want us to go in and keep the demons occupied while you sneak in the back door an' kill Garathis, aye?" 

"Pretty much," he said, rolling up the parchment and stuffing it back in his bag. "It's too late for us to go tonight, but we can hit them first thing in the morning, once we've rested up." 

Since there were no good places to camp where they couldn't be attacked, Alek, in the interest of safety, burned a large amount of power and dug them a cave with his geomancy, then sealed it behind them so that the demons would have no idea they were there. 

***Are you sure that was wise?*** Essylla asked him in concern as he sat down on the cave floor with a huff.  ***You might need that power later.***

***Don't worry, little firecracker,*** Darrius said in Pixili before Alek could respond, and placed a massive hand on Aleks shoulder. Magic flooded into him, instantly refilling and overcharging his reserves to the point that he felt like he was vibrating with power. Across the cave he felt Erissa do the same with Riah and Melody, and was quietly amazed at how much power Riah could hold before she was completely full. 

Meanwhile, Gren was trying not to have a panic attack. 

He had blinked. And suddenly he was…...elsewhere. A darkness, speckled with stars, the ground hidden by fog. 

"Be at peace, Grenden Bakerson."

He turned to see Erissa walking serenely out of the shadows to stand before him. "You haven't left the cave, and this is all within your own mind. I simply wished to talk with you in a more….private setting." She walked around him, looking him up and down, before nodding in satisfaction. "So. You're the one who caught the heart and eye of my dear dragon, hm?"

Gren couldn't think of anything to say, so he did what he felt was the smart thing, and stayed silent.

Erissa chuckled, and with a wave of her hand, a neat little table and two chairs appeared. "I won't eat you, I promise," she said, taking one of the chairs and gesturing for him to sit in the other. "I simply wanted to get to know one of my sons better."

That surprised him enough to speak. "But I'm not–"

"Are you not the assassin and former Dark Agent known as Silence?" she asked, cutting him off. When he nodded stiffly, she smiled, all warmth. "Then you are my child. All those who spend their lives ending others are my children." She looked at him for a long moment with a searching gaze, then sighed sadly. "You have had a hard life, Greden. Very hard. But I feel you've made the best of a bad hand, and dare I say, seem to have landed on your feet and come out better for it." She smiled at him again, her expression bright with a maternal love he didn't expect to see. "I won't get too deep on you, because I know you don't like that, but I will say that you're a good person, and both you and Zan are  _ very _ good at what you do, and I am  _ proud  _ of you both." 

"It's also quite clear to me that you love Alek dearly, and that makes me very happy," she said, beaming at him. "You'll be good for each other, I'm sure." She patted his cheek, then got up and started to walk back out into the mist, then paused and turned back to him for a moment. 

"Oh, and Grenden?" Her expression didn't change, but in that moment all the warmth she'd had a second before vanish, her eyes flat and dead in a way that chilled him to the bone. 

"If you break Alek's heart, not even your magic will be able to hide you from me."

He blinked again and was back in the cave with the others. No time had passed, everyone was still exactly where they had been.

He vanished. He dumped ALL his magic into his spell and completely, utterly vanished. Alek was confused until he closed his eyes, reached with his Dragon Sense, and Felt for Gren. He found him, and gasped at the pure ball of total panic he had become. 

"Gren?" he asked, and suddenly the others hushed. "Gren, are you alright? What's wrong,  _ sladi'voishka _ ?" The name meant "my shadow" in Russiki, which Gren had immediately taken a liking to. "Gren?" 

There was total silence. Suddenly, Zan spoke up. 

"Alek, open the cave."

Alek looked at him, perplexed. "What?"

"Open the cave!" Zan said, urgently. "Open the cave, now! Gren needs to get out of here!"

Alek didn't ask again or hesitate, he immediately reached for his magic and blew open a hole in the wall. Even before the dust had settled, Alek Felt Gren literally sprint out of the cave as fast as he could go. 

Alek was up and after him in a heartbeat, but Gren had so heavily overcast his spell that he actually vanished from even Alek's Dragon Sense. He froze, unsure of what to do, a cold lump of fear settling into his chest. Then he looked down, and noticed a few drops of blood on the grass. 

Gren's blood. 

Alek was a good tracker, and he began to carefully follow the trail. 

It took him nearly six hours to find Gren. 

He was up in a tree, leaning back against the trunk, knees against his chest, curled into a tight ball. His breathing was ragged, hoarse, and Alek could see he was shivering and sweating from where he stood. Alek could feel him now, too, and he was a mess. He had used up all his magic, and his channels were badly burned. 

Alek didn't do anything, or speak, he simply sat down and the foot of the tree and waited.

Another hour passed. Alek took out a knife and began whittling an intricate pattern into a stick. 

"She's a demon."

Alek looked up. 

Gren was sitting next to him. He hadn't noticed that Gren had moved. His face was grey and ashen, eyes hooded and glassy. He looked like hell. His hair was a disheveled mess, and there were scratches on his arms and face from when he had hit things while running.

"Who is?"

"The woman. Erissa. She's a demon. Got inside my head. Made me see stuff. Spoke to me."

"...........she………..did………... **_what?!_ ** "

Gren was actually shocked out of his stupor somewhat at the sheer level of  _ rage _ in Alek's voice. He had never heard someone that angry in his life. He took a step back in surprise, hands going to his sword hilts reflexively, but Alek wasn't even paying attention to him at this point. He stood, slowly, then kept rising as he reverted to his normal form. Heat bled from him in waves, melting the snow all around, and flickers of flame danced over his skin, hissing and crackling. 

Then he growled. 

It was not a sound a human throat should have been able to make.

He was gone in the blink of an eye, moving faster than Gren even thought possible for someone Alek's size.

Back at the camp, they were quietly discussing what they should do when Alek returned. He crossed the cave in an instant, snatched Erissa by the front of her dress, and slammed her against the wall so hard that cracks spiderwebbed out behind her.

" _ What did you ssssssay to him? _ " Alek's voice was a hissing snarl, so laden with menace and rage that even Erissa was taken aback. " _ Tell me, nephalim, what did you sssssssay to my  _ ashke  _ that ssssscared him ssssssso? _ "

Darrius stood and took a step forward as though about to intervene when Essylla appeared in front of him, red and orange lightning playing about her fingers.

"Don't even try it, War," she said softly, her eyes hard as diamonds. 

Darrius sat back down. 

" _ Ansssssswer me, Erissssssa! _ " Alek hissed, his fangs an inch from her nose. " _ What did you do?! _ "

"All I did was speak to him privately!" she exclaimed, trying to wriggle free. 

" **_MIND TO MIND!_ ** " roared Alek, drawing Erissa forward and slamming her into the wall again, then shook her like a ragdoll. " **_YOU TRAPPED HIM INSIDE HIS OWN HEAD!_ ** "

Riah, Melody, and Tracy all gasped, and Zan's face went dead in the way it did when he was really angry. 

"It was only for, like two minutes!" Erissa protested, finally breaking free of Alek and shoving him away from her. "I let him back out!"

" **_HE'S BEEN POSSESSED BY A DEMON BEFORE YOU STUPID FUCK!_ ** " Alek bellowed, his feet actually leaving glowing footprints on the stone as he stalked towards her again. " **_DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH BEING PULLED INTO A MINDSCAPE WOULD FREAK HIM OUT?_ ** "

"Yes, actually, I knew perfectly well what would happen."

There was absolute silence. 

Even Zan, a charm in his hand to further boost his impressive speed, couldn't match how fast Alek leapt at Erissa. 

As he stepped forward, Darrius held out a hand to stop him. 

"Nah, lad, dinnae try ta help," he said, shaking his head and then folding his arms. "Mah sister has gone too far this time, an' she can dig herself out o' the hole she dug. You'll only get in yon dragon-child's way, ye ken?"

Joseph and Allister both nodded in agreement, standing between the team and the two combatants to protect them. 

"Erissa should not have done that,"Allister said, his soft voice barely audible about the din. "That was cruel of her, and we will take her to task for it after Alek has finished."

"Sometimes the girl's power goes to her head, and she needs a lesson in humility," added Joseph. "She may be the strongest of us four, but she's also the youngest. It'll serve her right for Alek to refuse to speak to her for a century or two after this little stunt."

Alek threw himself at Erissa again and again, despite Erissa throwing him off her repeatedly now that he no longer had the element of surprise. She almost seemed bored. 

"I may not be able to kill you," he snarled, eyes crimson with fury. "But at the very least I can make you  _ bleed! _ " He spun, and his tail caught her square across the face, opening a large gash across her cheek.

Erissa gasped in surprise. Darrius and Joseph both swore in admiration, and Allister's eyes went wide. It had been a very long time since someone had managed to draw blood from a Nephalim. 

"Enough."

Everyone froze and then turned to see Gren, standing in the cave entrance. Melody's hummingbirds, which had been perched on his head and shoulders, cheeped and darted back to their places in her hair.

"Enough," he said again, walking slowly inside to stand between Alek and Erissa. Alek immediately knelt down next to him, pulling him close and wrapping his arms around him, and then his wings around them both. He glared defiantly up at Erissa. 

"Get out," he growled. "Get out of my sight, don't come back, and don't  _ ever _ come near my family again."

Her face darkened, and she took a step forward. 

Then froze.

Tracy was standing right behind Alek, on hand on his shoulder, the other pointing one of her guns directly at Erissa's face.

"Dragon-fire pistol," she said, and cocked the hammer menacingly. "Just try me, bitch. I won't miss." Melody stood on his other side, looking absolutely ferocious, eyes blazing siler, her teeth, somehow looking much sharper than they had been a moment ago, bared in a vicious snarl. Zan and Riah both stood behind Alek, Zan with blade and sword in hand, Riah fully ready to start lobbing spells. 

"It's time for you to leave, sister," said Joseph. "Go home. We will handle the demons."

She was still for a long moment, then nodded and vanished without a sound. 

Joseph turned to them, took off his hat and bowed. "I am sorry for what my sister did. I have surrounded this cave with a bubble of space-time energy. Stay here as long as you need to so that you can recover. No time will have passed in the outside world. When you're ready to go after Garathis, give us a call and we will get to work as per the original plan, minus Eri, of course."

And with that, they vanished as well. 

For a while, the team simply left Gren and Alek alone. Alek sat on the floor, Gren in his arms, wings folded around them both like a living tent. For the longest time they didn't speak, simply held each other and took comfort in the other's presence, occasionally trading gentle kisses as they both calmed back down.

Eventually, Gren broke the silence between them. 

"You actually attacked Death itself because she made me cry?"

Alek rumbled an affirmation deep in his chest. "Yeah, I did. She hurt you,  _ sladi'voishka _ . You are my Treasure," he said, touching his snout to Gren's forehead in the draconic style, marking him as the most precious thing in Alek's life. "I love you, and none shall harm you and escape retribution whilst I am here."

Gren was silent again for a long while, and he snuggled down against Alek's chest. 

"Your taste in friends sucks, lizard."

Alek couldn't help himself, and started to laugh.


	8. Heart of a Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apology gifts, life choices, and into the breach

After Alek inspected the bubble of energy outside the cave mouth, he proclaimed that Joseph had indeed been genuine. The cave was anchored to a specific point in time, and while they were inside, no time would pass in the outside world. 

They took full advantage of that and decided to spend the next three weeks in the cave, giving Gren time to recover, and then allowing them to train. 

Alek, after discussing it with the others, decided to change how they were going to fight, and that required them to practice.

He would be the center of their fighting line, fully armored, while Zan and Gren flanked him, taking advantage of the gaps he would make. He gave them dragon armor as well. The boys both got greaves, bracers, and shoulder guards. This would give them plenty of protection, without slowing them down. Riah and Tracy got the same, with the addition of a dragon armor cuirass, made of segmented plates that overlapped, giving excellent protection without hindering their movement any. They both opted against gloves, as they would need their hands free, Riah for gesturing to cast spells, and Tracy for firing and reloading her pistols and rifle.

Melody was a little more difficult, as she didnt like to wear things made from animals, and they were stumped on what to do until Essylla had an idea.

"Open my garden pocket, would you please, Alek?" she asked, then darted inside when he complied. She returned a few minutes later with a handful of oddly shaped seeds the size of a walnut in her hands. She smiled mysteriously and set them on the ground, crouching down next to them. 

Then she began to sing. 

It was a lilting pixie tune that Alek had heard her sing many times while she was gardening, but now she began to pour magic into the seeds, using the words to give it structure and form. They began to grow, curling out in tight spirals, overlapping and interweaving, until slowly, armor began to take form. When she finished, she dusted off her hands and straightened up, proudly handing her creations to Melody; a cuirass, bracers, greaves, and shoulder guards exactly like those Alek had given the others, but made from a smoothly polished, dark brown wood. They fit as though they had been tailored to her. 

Essylla giggled at their stunned faces. "That's how pixie's make armor!" she said, smiling. "We don't like metal either, so we adapted. It's called  _ nelta'lis _ , which means "tree-born". It comes from the  _ hestaka _ tree, ancient forest giants whose wood is tough as steel. We take the seeds, fill them with magic, and then sing them into the shape we need." 

"Thank you, Essylla, this will work wonderfully," Melody said, twisting this way and that to settle the armor and get a feel for how it moved with her.

Essylla giggled again and gave Melody a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. "Ain't no thing, love! We certainly couldn't have you going into battle unprotected, could we?" 

Halfway through the second week, Darrius returned.

"We talked it over, an' we decided that one o' us will be more than enough ta' help you, 'specially if I call in mah Blades."

Essylla squeaked in excitement. "You're gonna call your Blades? Callthemcallthemcallthemcallthemcallthemcallthem!"

Darrius laughed and held up a hand. "Alright, firecracker! Easy! Oi, Ambush!"

There was an odd popping sound, and a pixie appeared next to him. He was clearly a Grand Elder, like Essylla, with dark blue hair and silver eyes. He wore a pair of combat pants and boots, and while he wore no shirt, a pair of leather bandoliers crossed over his chest, more than twenty knives of various types and lengths sheathed in them, along with more still sheathed at his waist, thighs, and calves.

"You called, sire?" he asked, then noticed there were others in the room. His face lit up like the sun when he saw Essylla. "ESSY!"

"JASPER!" she squealed in delight, and flew at him.

The two collided in midair in a hug, and began chattering at each other in Pixili so fast even Alek couldn't follow what they were saying.

"What did he mean by 'his Blades'?" Riah asked Alek quietly. 

"Each Nephalim has a number of individuals that have pledged to serve them as personal warriors and emissaries, known as Blades of the Apocalypse," he replied,  _ sotto voce _ . "Each one embodies a particular element of the Nephalim they serve, and takes on a special name for it. Essylla's brother, Jasper, for example, is one of War's Blades, and goes by the name Ambush. A tactic he's extraordinarily good at, I might add."

While the pixies were distracted, Darrius beckoned them over, crouching down so they were all on the same level. 

"I understand that ye don't trust any o' us at this point, an' I respect that. This is for Gren in particular, an' the rest o' ye in general." He looked Gren in the eyes as he spoke. "On behalf o' mah brothers and I, ye have our deepest apologies." He looked at the rest of them in turn. "Erissa had absolutely no right ta do what she did, an' iff'n we had known what she was up ta, ye can bet yer arse we'd'ave stopped her."

He held a massive hand out to Gren. "I canna undo what has already been done, but I can promise ye goin' forward that I personally will try ta make it up ta ye in any way I can."

Gren looked at Darrius for a long moment, then grasped the offered hand firmly. "I can work with that," he said simply, and Darrius nodded. 

"Thank ye, lad," he said, standing back up again. "I'm glad, cuz I have apology gifts fer the lot o' ye!"

He reached into a pocket like Alek often did, and retrieved a rifle scope, which he passed to Tracy. It was a beautiful piece, with mother-of-pearl inlays and brass accents. Tracy holds it as though its made of spun sugar, cradling it carefully, her eyes wide. 

Darrius chuckled at her expression. "Joseph made that 'un," he said with a smile. "Night, thermal, an' x-ray vision, plus rangefinder an' automatic zoom. Nothin' can stop that scope from helpin' ye find yer target." Turning to Zan, he handed him a small vial of clear liquid. "Poison, specially made by Allister to kill demons, an'  _ only _ demons. Everythin' else is immune, but it'll put a demon down in ten seconds flat, from even the smallest o' cuts." 

Next was Melody. He handed her a small pot with a bright red flower, somewhat like a rose, but much larger. He winked at her, then threw a piece of jerky at it.

With eye blurring speed, vines whipped out from among the petals, tore the piece of meat to tiny scraps, then vanished again. Everyone, including Melody stared at the innocuous looking flower with wide eyed shock. Darrius bit back a laugh. 

"Tis' called a  _ vengeflower _ ," he explained. "Another creation o' Allister's. It's already been imprinted on the seven o' ye, so itll never hurt ye, but anythin' stupid enough ta try and come after ye will sorely regret it in short order, so long as yer carryin' it." Within minutes, Melody had it perched neatly atop her head, contrasting sharply with the glittering silver roses that already grew among her golden curls. The flower seemed to wiggle in delight as soon as she was done.

He handed Riah a dragon claw dagger, a foot-long triangular blade with a slightly curved hilt. As soon as she took it from him, she spun it around in her fingers the way she had seen Zan do numerous times, then popped it up into the air before catching by the tip, turning it back again and with a final flourish sticking it into her belt. Then she blinked in surprise. "Wait, what the hell??" 

Darrius laughed. "The dagger is charmed so that whoever holds it has the skill o' an expert knife fighter, even if they've never held a blade in their life." He tossed her the sheath and she caught it neatly, before drawing the dagger again and weaving a flashy, complex web of blade and sheath around her fingers almost too fast to follow before sliding the blade home and the whole thing into her belt again. 

"That is the hottest thing I have ever seen," said Gren at the exact same moment Zan said "I have never been as attracted to you as I am right now, Riah." 

Melody, Tracy, plus Essylla and the pixie Jasper, who had by now rejoined them, went down in a heap of helpless giggles, while Alek let out a loud snort. 

He turned to Gren last. "Here," he said, handing Gren a pair of polished black bracelets with an odd glyph on them. After Gren had put them on, he pointed at the glyph. "Touch the tip of yer blades ta that." Gren complied, and his swords vanished. "Now flick yer wrist, like so–" Gren copied the move, and his blade reappeared in his hand. 

"These are great!" he exclaimed, and Darrius grinned. 

"Ta return the swords, just touch them ta the glyph again," he said. Gren did so, and the swords vanished once more. "We hope these will serve ye well."

"So, Essylla, care to introduce your friend?" asked Zan, once everyone had settled down again. Essylla laughed. 

"He's not my friend, hes my brother!" she said, leaning against the other pixie. "This is Jasper Glitterchild, my younger brother, also known as the Blade Ambush."

"A pleasure to meet you all," Jasper said cheerfully. "I've served Lord War for about three centuries now."

Jasper was every bit as lively as his sister. They took turns telling stories of adventures, shenanigans, and amusing mishaps when they were younger.

“-and then,” he said, gasping for breath as he tried to stop laughing to continue the story. “I turn around and there is this fully grown  _ glataka _ standing there, about ready to eat me, and I reach up, put a finger over its mouth, and say ‘sssshhhhh, the baby is sleeping’, turn, and stroll right on out of the nest!”

At this point, everyone was slumped in various poses, laughing weakly, and wiping away tears of mirth. 

“Momma beat the bejeeziz outta you when you got home, too!” giggled Essylla, which set Jasper off again. 

Jasper then challenged Zan to a knife trick competition, with Gren as the judge, and the two of them were almost perfectly matched until Riah stepped up with her new dagger, disarmed both of them with a flurry of lightning fast movements, then took their blades in the same moment, and flicked them in opposite directions into the cave walls, before sheathing her blade and sitting back down. 

Until, after retrieving his blade, Zan came striding over with a decidedly  _ hungry _ look in his eyes, scooped her up, and carried her off to their sleeping area, Riah giggling the whole way.

They continued to train, often including Darrius, and several more of his Blades that he Called to him, having them stand in for the demons they would be fighting. 

After a particularly intense training session one night, Gren and Alek were spending some private time together. Alek had raised stone walls to section off parts of the cave so that each couple had some privacy, with the main area left open. 

"Alek, I…..have a question for you."

Alek, who had only been half awake, opened one eye. They were cuddled together amidst a nest of blankets, cushions, and pillows. "Hm?"

"I don't want you to think I'm having second thoughts about us," Gren said quietly, his head against Alek's chest, listening to the half-dragon's odd double heartbeat. "I'm absolutely not. But I would like to know, if one of us ever found someone that we fell in love with, what then?"

Alek kissed the top of Gren's head. "Then we would simply add them to the family," he said, closing his eyes again. "I have no problems sharing you, so long as the other person treats you with the love and respect you deserve. Love isn't a finite resource; it should be shared and spread as much as possible." He grinned down at Gren, his eyes mischievous. "Why, did you have someone in mind?" 

Gren laughed and whacked him with a pillow. "No, you dunce, I just wanted to know. I'm happy either way, I just needed to make sure we were on the same page."

Alek chuckled, then pulled Gren up into a long kiss. "No, I have no problems with it, but for the moment I am perfectly content with you,  _ sladi'voishka. _ "

In between training sessions, Alek began working on a side project, keeping it utterly secret from everyone else. The whole incident with Erissa had caused him to reexamine and reconsider how he felt, and he realized that his emotions went much deeper than he had first thought. He knew what he had to do next, and oddly enough, he wasn’t nervous or worried about it. He was dead certain this was the right thing to do.

The hardest parts were making sure Darrius kept his mouth shut after Alek enlisted his help, and then the serious magical working that he had to do without anyone else realizing what he was up to, but somehow, he managed to pull it off.

The final night before they planned to leave to engage the demons was a pleasant one. They took turns entertaining, as there were almost forty of them now with the inclusion of all of War’s Blades. Alek, Essylla, and an elf named Renegade made food for everyone, and they were sitting around the campfire chatting when Alek suddenly stood up.

Everyone stopped talking and turned to look at him. He walked over to Gren and gently drew the other man to his feet, before pulling something out of his pocket. 

It was a necklace, a simple chain, made of what looked like black metal, with two red diamond-shaped objects hanging from it. 

As soon as Essylla saw it, she gasped, then clapped her hands over her mouth. 

As Alek held it up for Gren to get a better look at it, he realized that what he had at first taken to be metal was actually dragon claw. Alek had skillfully carved the necklace out of single claw so that there were no seams in the links. 

"Charms work much the same in my world as they do here. The material a charm is made from has an impact on the strength of the enchantment; charms made from stronger, rarer, or higher quality materials are much more potent than those made from lesser quality." He held the two red diamonds, Gren now realizing they were scales, in his palm so that Gren could see them better. Each one had a series of glyphs etched into the surface. "This means that charms made from dragon claw and scales are  _ very  _ powerful. The first charm is a mind shield. It does exactly what its name implies. It creates a barrier around your mind that protects it from control or manipulation of any kind. Not even Erissa could get past that."

Gren was utterly speechless. He stared at Alek with wide eyes. 

Alek swallowed hard and coughed to clear his throat of the lump that had lodged itself there.

"The second charm is much different. It is made by a spell unique to red dragons, and can only be made for someone with whom the dragon has a deep emotional bond." He took a deep breath. "It is called _staratzgi lokara_ in dragonspeech, which means 'guardian flame'. I created it by taking a small piece of my soul and binding it to the charm." There were gasps all around the circle at that. Gren's eyes got even wider, his mouth open in a silent "o" of shock. "The unique thing about _lokara_ charms is that the effect they have is entirely dependent upon the dragon making it, and the individual the charm is being made for." He took Gren's hands between his own, standing almost nose to nose with his lover. "I made this _staratzgi lokara_ for you, from one of the scales on my chest over my hearts. It will bind your spirit to your body, protecting it from removal, displacement, or corruption of any kind. So long as you wear my scale, _ashke_ , there is no demon in existence that will be able to possess you. _Ever._ _Again._ "

Gren was silently crying now, tears of pure joy and other emotions flowing down his cheeks. 

"There is one more thing," Alek said softly. "In Russika, when an individual wishes to propose, we do not use rings, as other cultures do." 

Alek got down on one knee, holding the necklace up to Gren. 

Essylla, Riah, Melody, and Tracy all made very similar noises.

Gren was so overcome with emotion for a moment that he seemed to flicker in and out of sight before he got his magic back under control. Then, he very slowly took the necklace from Alek, and slipped it over his head. 

Alek stood, then pulled Gren tight to him, and kissed him hard while the others surged forward and hugged them both. 

They partied hard the rest of the night, celebrating the engagement. Gren and Alek were often completely oblivious to everything else around them, completely lost in each other. 

“Are…...are you sure?” Gren asked him later that night, once they had wound down and retired to their alcove. He was still wearing the necklace, although that also happened to be the  _ only _ thing he was wearing as well.

“Am I sure what,  _ ashke _ ?” Alek asked, running his fingers slowly through Gren’s blonde hair.

“Are you sure this is what you want? That  _ I’m  _ what you want?”

Alek tipped Gren’s head back and kissed him tenderly for a long moment, pulling Gren close against him. When he finally broke the kiss, he smiled down at his lover. “ _ Vla core’eh mastoy, sharavit imat droslot barakne tima’shtoya. Bartena vis sladi’voishka _ ,” he said, then repeated himself in Common. “You are my Treasure, my dark star, and I give you my everything. You are my Shadow.”

Gren was very still for a long moment, then leaned up and kissed Alek fiercely for a long while, then paused, both of them a little breathless. “I love you, Aleksandr.”

Alek kissed him again. “I love you too, Grenden.”

***********

They moved out early the next morning, leaving the cave behind. 

All thirty of Darrius' Blades had joined them at this point, and were eager for a fight. 

Alek, having returned to his full form, was resplendent and intimidating in his full armor. It was made from dragon claw plates, backed with dragon scales; the plates were the iridescent black of dragon claw, while the scales had been dyed gold and a deep purple. In one hand he carried a huge shield, fully as tall as the others, and in the other a massive flail, the spiked ball at the end of the chain nearly four foot in diameter. 

They stood well back as Darrius invoked his true power. 

"I am Apocalypse. I am a Herald of the End Times. I am savage bloodshed, and brutal violence. I am rage and destruction, a thousand lives cut murderously short. I am Nephalim. I! AM! WAR!"

All hell broke loose in the demon forces as the giant in black iron crashed into them, followed close behind by his coterie of warriors, all in their changed forms as well. 

They made their way around to the back of the mine, at the spot Alek had indicated, and he knelt down, placing his hand flat against the earth. There was a rumble, and then the ground beneath them seemed to flow like water, opening up and forming a ramp downwards into the dark of the mine. 

There weren’t any demons in the area they entered the mine, but that changed very quickly as soon as they became aware of the intruders in their stronghold.

All the training they had done paid off beautifully, and the demons were _not_ _at all_ prepared for the level of ferocity with which the team smashed into them. Demons were literally knocked flying into the air as Alek crashed into them with the force of a battering ram to be either picked out of midair like clay targets by Tracy or swiftly finished off by Gren or Zan when they hit the ground again. His flail lashed out time and again, carving huge swaths of bloody ruin through the tightly packed enemies. Melody’s flower tore dozens of demons to bloody shreds as they tried to rush them from side passages and separate them from each other. Riah and Essylla blew away scores of demons, spells arching over the heads of the others. Again and again, Tracy’s rifle barked, and each time a demon died with a bolt through an eye or throat. A few times she drew her dragon fire pistol and entire squads of demons vanished in an instant. Gren and Zan timed their strikes perfectly so that as soon as Alek stepped back to regain his footing and ready for another forward push, they were there in the demon’s faces, their blades reaping a fearful tally. Imps, _thrakka_ , hellions, all met death at the hands of the three fighters. 

The mine was a labyrinth of tunnels, without any kind of pattern or uniformity to spacing or placement. Fortunately, Alek’s geomancy meant that he knew exactly where they were and where they needed to go, and kept them on course. It also helped make sure that they demons didn’t come at them from behind by collapsing tunnels as they passed through them. Alek could tell that they killed literally hundreds of demons by doing that as they were caught in the rockfalls he triggered, tons of stone cascading down on them.

And the entire time, the demons kept coming. 

Literally dozens of them at a time would come swarming out of the shadows, screeching and chattering in their barbarous tongue, trying to overwhelm them through sheer force. As far as tactics went, it wasn’t very effective, nor overly clever. 

But it was exhausting. 

The first injury was Zan taking a nasty gash along his cheek when he wasn’t quite quick enough to get out of the way of a spear thrust because fatigue was starting to weigh down his limbs. After that point, they began to take more and more small injuries, not bad in and of themselves, but debilitating over time. They were starting to get worn down, and that was the true strength of demon tactics. 

And then they found their goal. The mine suddenly opened up into a huge central chamber, packs of demons all over the place. Before they could take more than a few steps in the direction of the Alek and the others, however, they were all smashed flat by an immense wall of force. 

Fire boiled across the room, and hundreds of demons died screaming in an instant. 

Alek leapt forward, raising his shield. “Get behind me!” he bellowed, waves of flame slamming into him again and again, the others taking refuge behind his broad back. 

His shield suddenly rang like a bell as something struck it, and everyone was knocked flying. 

They all came to their senses slowly, picking themselves up off the floor from where they had landed. 

“Hey, I know we went into this with low expectations, but  _ what the fuck _ ?” Gren groaned, and Alek had to stifle a laugh, despite the situation. 

“I was going to say the same thing.”

The voice was smooth, cultured, a rich, warm baritone. Alek, who was already on his feet and moving, froze in stunned surprise. 

The others converged on him, taking up formation around him. 

“So is this the one we’re supposed to kill?” asked Zan, twirling his dagger and sword. “You’re Garathis?”

“That’s not Garathis.”

Everyone looked at Alek in surprise. He had lost his helm when he had been knocked into the air, and he had a split lip and there was a gash on his forehead, but his face was grim. 

“That’s not Garathis,” he said again, tossing aside his shield and flail and drawing his massive greatsword. 

The demon before them grinned wickedly, his acid green eyes sparkling with cruelty. 

“Hello again, Alek,” said Lucifer, Abyssal King of the Demons, Archfiend of the Infernal Realm.


	9. μαίνομαι &  αγάπη

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ruler of hell, a furious beast, and victory

"You should be dead," Alek said flatly, pulling another great sword from his armory pocket. "I watched Ser Karniga run you through with both of his holy blades. How are you here?"

The demon chuckled. "Greater demons, like myself, are very hard to permanently kill, my dear boy," he said, examining his fingernails and speaking as though talking to an especially stupid child. "If our corporeal form is destroyed, our essence returns to the Infernal Realm, where we eventually reform. The worse the injury that destroyed us, the longer it takes. Took me the better part of the last millennium to fully regenerate."

"Hang on," interrupted Gren. "If this isn't Garathis, then who is it?"

"Ah, where are my manners?" Lucifer bowed elegantly, then saluted them smartly with the thin-bladed rapier he bore. "Lucifer Morningstar, at your service." He looked from one to the other, surprise showing on his face. "Lucifer Morningstar? Abyssal King of the Demons? Archfiend of the Infernal Realm? Is none of this ringing a bell?"

"Should it?" asked Gren, shrugging. "I mean, as far as I was concerned, you're just an unusually powerful demon."

Riah shrugged too. "Where I come from, Lucifer is the name of the Devil, but I never particularly believed in any of that, so, yeah, not really too terribly put out."

Lucifer was beside himself. "What is wrong with your friends?" he said to Alek incredulously. "Are they broken?? Why are they not cowering in terror?" 

Alek grinned wickedly. "Maybe you just aren't as scary as you think you are, Lucy."

Lucifer growled at him, but Alek just laughed. Then the demon grinned. 

"Ooooooh is that a Russiki betrothal necklace I see? Oh, Aleksandr, I'm so happy for you! When's the wedding?"

_ CLANG _

Lucifer only just got his sword up fast enough to stop Alek's blades from slicing him open, calling another one out of thin air to counter Alek's second blade. 

" _ You will not touch my family _ ." Alek snarled viciously. Lucifer laughed. 

"Oooooooh touched a nerve, did I?" He cackled gleefully. "Oh, my dear Aleksandr, it's so good to know that after all this time you still have the same weaknesses that you did back then, caring for others more than yourse–"

_ WHAM _

Alek's armored tail caught Lucifer square across the midriff, rocketing him across the room to smash into the wall. 

"Hahahaaa and it's good to see you still have the same weaknesses too, Lucy!" Alek replied, grinning fiercely. "Still too busy listening to the sound of your own voice to watch your opponent properly!" 

Lucifer rose to his feet, spitting out a globule of blood, and glared pure hatred at Alek. "I will make you scream for that, mongrel!"

Alek laughed, flourishing his swords and settling into a fighting stance. "You can try, demon!"

The team turned as a horde of demons came pouring in through the door behind them. 

"We'll handle these bastards!" Zan called, swiftly dispatching a pair of  _ thrakka _ that tried to rush him. "You focus on Lucifer!"

"Yes, do try to focus on me, dear Aleksandr!" cackled the demon king, lunging at Alek. They traded a series of blows, almost too fast to see, then broke apart, circling each other slowly. "You wouldn't want little old me to feel neglected now, would you?" 

Alek surged forwards, his right blade crackling with lightning, his left wreathed in blazing dragonfire. "Of course not! Come then, demon king! You will die by my hand!"

******************

Outside the mine, the demons were not having a good time of things. War and his blades cut swathes of bloody death through their ranks, dozens dying every second.

**_< Face me, dark ones!> _ ** bellowed War, creating crescents of fiery energy with his sword that vaporized every demon they struck.  **_< The Lord of Battle has come to claim your souls!>_ **

Jasper, in his true form as Ambush, was wreaking bloody havoc alongside his companions Uprising and Insurrection. 

**< I hope Eri and the others are doing alright,>** he said as several demons went down to his knives. Uprising grunted as he deflected a spear thrust, then ran the offending demon through with his own blade. 

**< I'm sure they'll be just fine,> ** he reassured him.  **< Alek is a tough bastard, and your sister is chaos itself.>**

**< Their new friends are extremely competent as well,> ** Insurrection chimed in, blasting several demons at once with a hissing whip of crimson lightning.  **< It'll all work out.>**

*********************

Back inside the mine, however, the team was in trouble. 

The sheer weight of numbers, combined with growing fatigue was conspiring against them, and they were slowly being pushed back across the room towards the far wall. Despite the fact that they made the demons play dearly in blood for every inch of ground they took, they were forced to fall back a bit at a time or else risk being overrun. 

Alek was having difficulties as well. Lucifer was somehow much stronger than the last time they had fought, and Alek was barely holding his own. He had already expended his last reserves of magic, and at this point was forced to rely entirely on physical skill. 

And he was tiring much faster than Lucifer. The demon king had scored him several times now, and the slow loss of blood was making it harder and harder to keep up the relentless pace. He blocked an overhand blow from one of Lucifer's blades, then had to skip back to avoid a swipe from the other. He stepped forward again, only to be checked as Lucifer suddenly lowered his shoulder and slammed into him. Alek was actually lifted off his feet and knocked nearly twenty feet backwards before landing hard with a clatter of armor, both his swords flying out of his grasp. 

As he looked up, Lucifer stood over him, both swords raised, ready to deliver the killing blow. At the last possible second, he rolled aside, and the blades sank into the stone where his head had been a moment before. Then Gren was suddenly there, lashing out with both blades, forcing Lucifer to dodge backward with a startled oath. 

There was a sudden lull in the fighting, and the team swiftly rallied around Alek. Essylla, thinking fast, dropped her strongest dome shield around them. 

"That should buy us some time," she said, breathing hard. "But at this point I'm pretty much tapped out. Riah?"

The mage shook her head. "I'm down to my last reserves, too."

"I'm spent and running on fumes," rasped Alek, panting like the bellows. He took a grateful swallow of water from a canteen Zan handed him before passing it back. "Lucifer is far stronger than the last time we fought, and he's fresher than we are." He hesitated. "I……….I don't think I can defeat him. He's so  _ strong _ ."

The others looked grim. If Alek couldn't beat Lucifer, then they were in deep trouble. 

There was silence for a bit, the shield muffling the screeching and shouting of the demons outside. 

"Well, I suppose that's it then," Zan said quietly. "We'll just have to hold out as long as we can and hope War and the others can get to us in time." His tone made it clear he knew what the odds of that were. 

"Let's see how many we can take down with us, yeah?" said Gren, with forced levity. The others nodded. 

"No."

They all looked at Alek, who slowly rose to his feet with a grunt of effort. He began slowly unbuckling his armor, dropping pieces with a clatter.

"Alek, what are you doing?!" Gren exclaimed, trying to stop him. Alek gently shrugged him off and continued. 

"I will not allow you all to sacrifice your lives while I still have breath in my lungs," he said, removing his breastplate and letting it fall with a clang. "You are my family. You are my Treasures. All of you. And so long as I live,  _ none may take you from me. _ "

"Alek, wait, you can't!" Gren said, as Essylla landed on his shoulder, nodding her agreement. "You said you wouldn't use it!"

"Listen to Gren!" Essylla said, her voice shaky. "In this state, you may not be able to retain control!"

"What are the three of you talking about?" demanded Tracy, glaring at them. "What's going on?"

"I lied when I said I had no more secrets," Alek replied shortly, before either Gren or Essylla could speak up. He began undoing his graves as he spoke. "I have another form besides my full dragon that I haven't shown you. It's not that I don't trust you, well, I mean, at the time when you asked I didn't really trust you, but Gren knows……..that's beside the point." He stood up and kicked aside the last of his armor. He turned to Essylla. "Open the shield."

"No," she said firmly, locking eyes with him. "I will not allow you to do this."

"Open the shield, Essylla."

"No!"

" _ Open the shield, pixie, or I will open it myself. _ " His voice was a deep, guttural snarl. 

Essylla glared at him fiercely for a long moment, tears streaming down her face, then, choking back a sob, opened the shield. Gren tried to bar his way, but Alek simply picked him up, kissed him hard, then set him down out of the way and stepped through the gap. Essylla slammed the shield closed before anyone could try to follow Alek. 

"ALEK!" Gren yelled, pounding on the inside if the shield. "ALEK! DONT DO THIS! STOP! ESSYLLA, OPEN THE SHIELD!  _ OPEN THE FUCKING SHIELD! AAAALLEEEEKK!!!! _ "

"Essylla, what is Alek going to do?" Riah said, grabbing the Essylla by the shoulder and spinning her around roughly.

"He's going to destroy Lucifer and the rest of the demons," Essylla said bitterly, her face twisted in anguish. 

"At what cost?" asked Melody. "His life?"

"Worse," the pixie said, sobbing openly now. "His sanity." 

Outside of the dome, Lucifer cocked his head and smiled nastily at Alek. "What, come to surrender yourself if I spare your little friends?" 

Alek shook his head. "You know, I've been meaning to thank you, Lucy."

The demon raised an eyebrow. "Oh? For what?"

"You gave me my greatest strength, and I never properly thanked you for it." Alek bowed low, hoping Lucifer would take the bait. "So thank you, you demonic schmuck, for giving me the power to  _ beat your ass like a drum. _ "

Lucifer took the bait hook, line, and sinker. 

As he flashed forward, blades poised to strike, Alek suddenly rose up and seized his wrists. He laughed, a truly terrible smile on his face. 

"Gotcha, bitch," he snarled gleefully, his voice becoming a deep booming rumble that filled the whole cavern.  **_"Arise, O' Dark One! Heed me, you ancient beast of savage, frozen rage!"_ ** Orbs of pale green and blue foxfire danced around him, and whisps of bone-white flame curled around his fingers. Lucifer was thrashing wildly, trying to break free, screaming in abject terror, unable to escape Alek's iron grip.  **_"You, who stands between the gates of Life and Death! Come forth, and send the souls of my foes screaming into the depths of the icy Void! AWAKEN, GRAVEDRAGON!"_ **

A burst of necromantic power obscured the pair for the moment, but when it cleared, demons began to panic, fleeing in every direction. 

" _ What is that? _ " whispered Melody, her eyes round as coins, extremely pale. Her hummingbirds huddled deep into her hair, cheeping piteously in fright. 

"The Gravedragon," Essylla breathed, unable to look away. "The ancient killer that lurks in the frozen silence between stars."

Alek, or what he had become, was over twenty feet tall now. His skin was taut and dry, like parchment, his bones in sharp relief beneath it, his stomach sunken, ribs visible. His tail lashed back and forth behind him, each segment clearly defined, his wings, now massive, wide and skeletal, flared behind him, scraps of tattered membrane hanging from them. His claws had lengthened, and bleached. Where his eye should have been were simply two hollow pits, burning with pale green fire. 

He still clutched a screaming and thrashing Lucifer in one immense claw. With an almost casual gesture, he grabbed the demon king with his other hand as well, and then literally ripped Lucifer in half. There was another flash of light, and when it cleared, Alek had tossed aside the now lifeless halves of the demon and was holding a small pulsing sphere of darkness shot through with red. 

**_+Did you think you could esssscape me, little demon?+_ ** his voice brought to mind images of dead things, rotting flesh, and invoked a formless sense of dread in everyone.  **_+Flee back to your little hole in the Infernal Realm? Oh, no, that will never do. Thissss time, you will not be coming back.+_ ** And then he crushed the sphere in his fist. 

There was a shriek of pure agony, and then the sphere was gone. 

Alek turned his burning gaze on the rest of the demons.

**_+You look tassssssty!+_ ** he hissed, and lunged forward.  **_+Time to die!+_ ** He tore into them like a whirlwind, bodies flying everywhere, demons dying by the dozens. Soon he was laughing and shrieking, slaughtering any that he could reach. Eventually, there were none left, all either dead, or having managed to flee. 

Alek stood in the center of the blood soaked floor, hissing and snarling quietly. 

Essylla dropped the shield, and Zan started to move towards Alek. 

"No!" hissed Gren, grabbing him and pulling him back. 

At the sound of his voice, Aleks head snapped around, and they all froze. He stared at them as though he wasn't really seeing them. There was no recognition in his burning gaze, just unending rage, and an unquenchable thirst for bloodshed. 

"Alek? Are you—hnnnn!!" Essylla started to speak, but Alek's tail snapped out and bashed her sideways into the wall, where she slumped to the floor. He began to stalk towards them, hissing angrily. 

"Stop."

Alek froze, glaring down at Gren, who was standing before him, arms spread in front of the others. 

"Alek. It's me. Gren." His voice was soft, gentle. "Hear me. Focus. Listen to my voice. Hear my love for you. Focus. Come back to me. Come back to us."

Alek hissed and his tail lashed out again, carving a bloody furrow across Gren's shoulder. He staggered, but stayed upright. He spread his arms again. 

"Alek……. _ ashke _ ," he said, tears sliding down his face. "Don't leave me. Wherever you have gone, come back. Focus. Come back to me!"

Alek raised a claw, ready to strike Gren down.

There was total silence for a long moment. 

Then, very slowly, the power began to bleed out of him, and he slowly returned to normal. He sagged to the floor, utterly, completely spent. Gren ran to him and hauled him up into his arms, cradling Alek against his chest, murmuring to him softly. "I've got you, love, you're okay, you're safe, we won, it's over now, you're alright, I'm here, I have you, it's okay."

The others, including Essylla, surrounded them, all of them wrapping their arms around Alek. 

In the center, surrounded by his greatest Treasures, face buried in his love’s shirt, Alek began to cry.


	10. The Closing Act

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Homecoming, recovery, a surprise, and happily ever after.

The handful of remaining demons that had managed to escape Alek had nowhere to go but straight out the front, where they ran directly into War and his Blades. 

None survived. 

When they reached the main chamber, they hurried to help the team. Alek was a mess, poisoned with the necromantic powers of the Gravedragon, and while he wasn't in danger of dying, he was going to be very, very sick for a week or so while his body purged the dark magic from itself. As it was, he couldn't stand on his own, and two of War's larger Blades, Rampage and Extermination, had to carry him out of the mine.

As they were helping Alek away, Riah had War open a portal to the Tower. The Warriors along with a large detachment of the kings guard swiftly came through. Riah explained what had gone down. 

"Don't worry, darling," said her mother-in-law and namesake. "We will purge the dark energies here. You all go and rest." Alissa nodded in agreement, as did her father. They all went back through the portal and into the Tower, where they were promptly mobbed by servants, healers, and various others, who quickly had them settled, comfortable, and their injuries already on the mend. 

Since Alek was too big to fit through the doors, and was too ill to muster the strength to transform back to his smaller form, so they erected a pavilion in the courtyard and placed him in that, on a pile of mattresses and cushions. Gren refused to leave him, and none of the healers or servants were brave enough to try and argue with him, though Melody threatened to let her  _ vengeflower _ loose on him if he didn't leave long enough to bath, eat something, and get his wounds healed. Gren knew better than to argue, and complied, albeit grudgingly, with a significant amount of mutinous swearing under his breath. 

It was a slow road to recovery for Alek. He alternated between chills and burning up, and could barely keep any food down. Melody, along with Alissa and Riah's stepmother did their best to ease his symptoms, but there wasn't much they could do to help, and were forced to let nature take its course and wait for the poison energies bleed out of him. Gren spent every moment with him, getting anything he needed, helping him pass the time. Alek showed him how to use the storage project rings, and had Gren retrieve a number of books from one of them, but when he tried to read them, found that the pages kept swimming in front of his eyes, and he had to set the books aside. 

Gren, seeing how it bothered him, immediately picked up the book and insisted on reading aloud to Alek. When Melody and Riah came in an hour layer to check on Alek, they found the two of them cuddled together, sound asleep with the book open in Gren's lap. 

Two days after they had returned to the Tower, they had a visitor. 

The team where hanging out in Alek's pavilion, keeping him company and chatting idly since none of them had anything else to do; Zan and Gren were caring for their blades, Melody and Essylla were braiding Tracy and Riah's hair into intricate patterns, and Alek was simply resting, occasionally joining in on the conversation. 

Everyone froze momentarily when a portal suddenly opened on the other side if the courtyard. Then Gren and Zan where both in front of Alek with blades in hand, while Tracy, Melody, Riah and Essylla all surrounded his bed. 

A woman stepped through the portal, and it collapsed behind her. She wore black leather pants, comfy boots, a dark, wine-red shirt, and a black leather jacket studded with glittering red scales in regular bands. She had dark blonde hair, cut shoulder length, and her eyes were the same brilliant yellow with vertical slit pupils like Alek's. He waved Gren and Zan away, then sat up with help from Melody and Riah. 

"Hello, mother," he said with a genuine smile. "I was wondering how long it would take for you to show up. Everyone, allow me to introduce my mother, the Red Dragon Fireheart. Mother, these are my friends, Riah, her husband Zandithas, Tracy, and her partner Melody, and my soon-to-be husband, Grenden." He reached out and took Gren's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. 

She smiled, revealing a pair of wickedly pointed fangs, nodding to each of them in turn, and came to sit next to him, Melody quickly vacating her chair to settle cross-legged on the ground, leaning back against Tracy's legs. Fireheart sat with a nod of thanks and took Alek's other hand.

"A little bird told me about what happened, and so I came to check in on you," Fireheart said, her voice a warm, rich contralto which brought to mind thoughts of a fire burning cheerfully in a fireplace. "That and the fact that you were betrothed. What mother would miss her child's wedding?" 

Alek made a wry face at his mother. "Little bird my ass," he said, chuckling. "More like a big vulture named Darrius Cross. I should've known the big doofus wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut once everything had been dealt with. Did he mention what got me to the point of proposing?"

"No? Did something happen?"

"Eri happened," said Essylla said darkly. 

"She crossed a line with Gren, and I…..ah, reacted," Alek said delicately.

"What he means is that he came storming back into the cave where we had made camp and actually slammed her into the wall so hard it made a dent," said Zan dryly. 

"And when he found out she did it on purpose?" Tracy chimed in. "Whoooo boy! Zan is part elf and even  _ he _ can't move as fast as a pissed off Alek."

"Enough already!" Alek cried, laughing. "You bunch get your kicks out if embarrassing me in front of my mother, don't you?" 

"Of course," Melody said sweetly, without a hint of remorse.

Fireheart laughed, beaming at Alek and the others. "I'm glad to see you've found yourself in such good company, my dear," she said, patting his knee affectionately. "It's been some time since I saw you so at ease with anyone other than Essylla." 

Alek blushed a bit, but smiled, giving Gren's hand another squeeze. "What can I say? They're good people. They fight for what they believe in, and are willing to do what needs to be done in order to protect those they care about. There are few things more noble than that."

The others all smiled at him, and Foreheart nodded. "Very true, my dear. Regardless, I'm glad you're happy. So, I shall leave you all to your rest and introduce myself to the other People of Import here. Essylla, would you care to be my escort, darling?"

The pixie rose and fluttered over to Fireheart, perching easily on her shoulder. "Of course, mi'lady," she said, all manners and perfect behavior with the ancient dragon. 

In the end, it was just Gren and Alek left in the tent. Zan and Riah decided to accompany Fireheart as well, while Tracy and Melody drifted off to their rooms together. Gren went back to oiling and sharpening his swords. Even though the dragon claw blades didn't require such care, he took comfort in the familiarity of the routine, and it did much to calm and relax him. Alek dozed fitfully.

" _ Ashke _ ," Gren said, gaining Alek's attention. He had adopted the Russiki word, much to Alek's delight. "I have a bit of a personal question for you, if you don't mind?"

Alek sat himself up a bit and smiled at his love. "Of course not,  _ sladi'voishka _ ," he said gently, patting the bed next to him. Gren came and snuggled against his side. "I have no secrets from you. What's on your mind?" 

"Well," said Gren, unusually hesitant. "I was wondering if you might tell me about your previous partners."

Alek chuckled and kissed the top of Gren's head. "That's it? And here you had me nervous for a moment." He was quiet for a few moments while he organized his thoughts. "Well, the logical place to start is with my first wife, Anastasia. She was a childhood friend I grew up with. Funny part? She was a water mage. A very powerful one, too."

Gren laughed. "Seriously?"

Alek nodded and chuckled. "Mhm. She was so vibrant and full of life, just like the water she wielded. Her mage title, which is similar to my dragon name, was "Lady of the Waves". She was the first water mage in almost three centuries to find and negotiate a pact with the Deep Lord, Leviathan. We were married for…….about 40 years, I believe."

"You miss her," Gren observed. 

"Of course I do," Alek said, kissing Gren. "But that doesn't change my love for you, nor make it any less strong. I do miss her, because I loved her, and she was a close friend."

Gren shook his head. "It wasn't a judgment,  _ ashke _ , just a comment. I have no doubts about your feelings for me, nor mine for you."

Alek nodded and went on. "I was on my own for a while after that before I met Falantar, and elf from the Brightwing clan. They were an alchemist, and I had known them for nearly fifty years by then. We worked on an issue with one of Felterra's colony worlds, I forget what, and became close. They were only middling in terms of power, but  _ extraordinarily  _ clever, and compensated for their lack of brute force with brilliant applications of laser fine precision."

He took a drink of water before continuing. "We were together for, oh, about two hundred years, give or take a decade before we parted ways. It was an amicable split, and we still see each other socially from time to time. Last I heard, they were out on the eastern fringe of CSS territory, investigating a ruined planet."

"You guys split up?" Gren asked, somewhat surprised.

"Actually, it's not uncommon among immortals to seek out new partners," said Alek. "At least not I'm my reality. tHe biggest problem with living forever, at least in my experience, is that you get  _ bored _ . So it's not unusual for two people who have been together for several centuries to decide to go their separate ways to have new experiences." 

"That…….makes a lot of sense, actually," Gren mused. "I've never thought of it that way."

Alek chuckled and continued to tell him about his past loves, amusing stories, how they met, while Gren traded him more tales of his life as an assassin, even telling him how he and Zan met. Then they got to talking about other things, Alek explaining how a dragon gets their name, and the process of earning it, and talking about draconic in general. Gren found it funny that while Alek could read and write in draconic, and understand it perfectly, he couldn't actually  _ speak _ it, aside from a few select words, mostly swears, because his mouth was the wrong shape. He then of course demanded that Alek teach him all the curse words he knew, which Alek was amused enough to do. 

"Actually, there is one more phrase I want to teach you," Alek said suddenly, his voice getting soft. His tone caught Gren's attention, and he turned to face him. 

"And that is?"

" _ Nassana Lexica Dracus _ ."

Gren said the words a few times softly to himself, as though savoring them. "They have power," he said at last. "I feel a strong warmth in my chest when I say them. What do they mean?"

"Me," Alek said, with a tender smile. "They mean me."

"What do you–" Gren trailed off as the realization of what Alek had just given him struck home. He gasped, hand going over his mouth, eyes wide in surprise. Alek chuckled softly. 

"You know, for one who is as verbose as you, I seem to have quite the knack for rendering you speechless,  _ ashke _ ," Alek said, moving Gren's hand aside and kissing him gently. 

Why he released him, Gren looked up at Alek, eyes bright. "Why?"

"Because, you are my  _ sladi'voishka _ , my  _ Sharavit Imat _ , and my  _ ashke _ ," Alek murmured, resting his forehead against Gren's. "You are my  _ world _ . I love you with all of both my hearts." That caused Gren to smile. "What other reason do I need?"

****************

The next morning was overcast, drizzling on and off, much to Alek's annoyance. Gren had gone off to get them both breakfast, and Riah was keeping him company, discussing the differences between Felterran magic and the magic she used, a habit they had gotten into while on the road. 

With no warning, a bolt of lightning landed down out of the sky and struck the flagstones with a thunderous  _ CRACK _ , startling both of them badly. When they turned to look, a figure was crouched there, obscured by slowly drifting smoke. As the smoke cleared, Riah drew in a sharp gasp, and Alek jumped to his feet, despite his weakness and injuries. 

"DEMON!" he bellowed. 

His shout brought guards pouring in from every direction, blades drawn. "For the king!" one of them yelled, dashing forward. "Protect Lord Scorchfang and Lady Sunborn!"

"Wait!" cried the demon. "I do not come to fight!"

The soldiers started to charge.

"HOLD!" Everyone skidded to a halt as Alek's stentorian roar rang out. 

The demon was kneeling, head bowed, unarmed, in Alek's direction. He rose slowly to his feet, keeping his arms wide. "I do not come here to fight, only to speak."

"Then speak, demon," Alek said, as the rest of the team and the Warriors came pounding into the courtyard. "Who are you, and why have you come?"

"My name is Mephistopheles Aragontil," the demon said, straightening proudly. "And I am the true Abyssal King. I have come to speak with you, nothing more. I will leave if you ask it of me, but I would beg that you let me say my piece before I depart."

There was silence for a long moment, then Alek nodded slowly. 

"Very well, since you come unarmed, amd in peace, I will hear you out," he said, locking eyes with the demon. "But if you make a single wrong move, it will be your last, clear?"

Mephistopheles nodded. "I understand," he said. "May I sit?" Alek, who was starting to feel a bit wobbly, nodded and gestured to the chair across from him, settling back onto his bed. The demon was different from the others he had faced, though clearly a Greater Demon, as the Infernal Lords had been. He was powerfully built, with a fighter's lean, toned body, but he had dark blue skin, as opposed to the red-orange Alek was used to. 

"So," said Alek, once they had settled themselves. The guards kept their blades drawn, though they were no longer pointing them at their visitor. "Why have you come here?"

"I came in person to thank you for destroying the usurper and monster known as Lucifer Morningstar," the demon said, bowing his head slightly. "He and his followers were power crazed madmen who wrought as much destruction upon their home as they did on other realities." 

Alek looked startled. "What do you mean?"

"I am the rightful Abyssal King," Mephistopheles said, repeating his earlier words. "I ruled the Infernal Realm firmly, but fairly, as had my father, and my grandfather, and so on, back through the ages. Until Lucifer came with his army of corrupted hollow demons, and tore our realm apart, chased me into exile in the Shadow Lands, and launched his brutal attempt at conquering your world."

"Hollow demons?" asked Riah.

Mephistopheles nodded. "True demons are not like those you faced. We are no more evil than the night. We are born from darkness, smoke, and flame. That is how we are created, slowly, over time. But Lucifer discovered a new process of creating demons. He substituted corruption for darkness. This made weaker, stupider, souless demons, but it also made them far faster, dozens at a time. It was with this army of bastardized half-things that he destroyed my forces and seized my throne for himself."

"So…….you came to say thank you?" Alek asked slowly. His head was spinning, trying to come to terms with everything he had just learned. 

Mephistopheles nodded. "I did, and to promise you that never again will a demon wage war upon any of your worlds. So long as I hold the throne, it will never happen again. I do not wish to overstay my welcome, so I shall depart now." And with another flash, he was gone. 

*****************

The wedding was a huge affair. Almost four days of partying, most of it orchestrated by Riah and Tracy, backed up by the king. Alek and Gren received more wedding presents from guests they had never heard of than they had any idea what to do with. King Gerain granted them the deed to a castle in the southeastern part of the country, close to the sea, much to Gren's delight. After the festivities, they went there with the rest of the team to inspect their new home and take some well deserved time off. 

"So, what will you do now?" Riah asked them one evening. "Are you going to return to your own dimension?"

Alek smiled, his arms around Gren, who sat comfortably in his lap. 

"Well, since I've finally gotten the time stream for this world dialed in, I can account for the time dilation this time and return to my reality whenever I want and have only been gone for anywhere from an hour to a day. So I'm in no rush." He leaned down and gave Gren a long kiss, which was returned with enthusiasm.

"Besides," said Gren with a wicked smile. "I'm sure I can do  _ something _ to persuade you to stick around."

Alek simply chuckled and carried Gren off to their bedroom, ignoring the laughter from the others behind then. 

  
  


**FIN**

  
  
  


**Authors Note**

Thank you so much to the people who read this and liked it. I'm blown away. I may post some fluff chapters that occur after this, funny ideas or things I wanted to do in the story that I couldn't quite fit in, but this storyline is actually complete, which is a first for me. 

Firstly, a special thank you to Lee Hadan. You created this world, and encouraged me every step of the way, and I'm so happy to call you a friend, and I don't think I would have gotten here without you. Secondly, a big thanks to my dear friend Kit, who was an extremely enthusiastic sounding board, and never ending source of feedback. Love you, darling. ^_^ And lastly, thank you to all of you who read and liked my story. 

Live fast, laugh hard, and never forget to _smile!_ ONWARDS!


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